Right my new TOP party tip

[Clary]

After DD's fabulous party at the weekend

Make sure you are wearing sthg with pockets, and have paper and a pen in one, so you can note down which child has won a game - and make sure different ones win the others (after all you can fix some - pass the parcel, best collage picture, musical chairs even!)

[Clary]

come on you lot, I want your top tips now!

[tassis]

make 2 cakes - one fancy one with candles etc on and one slab one that's iced in simialr colour and is pre-cut and wrapped and in the party bags ready to go!

[Clary]

yeah tassis did that last year with DD's unbelievably complicated castle cake.

top banana

Meant we were eating pink-iced castle for about a week tho....

[blackandwhitecat]

For young children (whose writing isn't good) write the thank you cards yourself as they are opening the presents. Buy those ready made ones that say Dear .....
Thank you for the ...........
From .........

And fill in the Thank you for the ....... bit yourself then if you want your dc to play some part in the cards later put a post-it on each card with the name for her or him to copy as they open presents. Saves loads of procrastinating and time and effort later.

[lilolilmanchester]

or give the prize winner a sticker, so you can see easily who needs to win a prize & fix accordingly. Then just hand out the 'prizes' when they collect their party bags.
If you have a digital camera, take a picture of the birthday child with each guest and use for thank you letters.
For older children, agree they can do thank you letters on the computer so you only have to change name/present but say that as they're getting off so lightly, they have to write a bit more than if they handwrote.
Use greaseproof paper rather than serviettes for wrapping cake, the icing doesn't stick as much.
Make a list of what you need for the party/food etc on the computer so you can just reuse next year.