Ideas for a girls 3rd birthday party please

[BubblesDeVere]

What happened? my first post is missing?

Has anyone got any ideas for a 3 years olds birthday party, I have toyed with the idea of having on at the soft play area,but, she doesn't know many children her age and the play area is still open to the public, some of the older children that come in are sometimes rougher with, and bully, the younger ones.

Obviously I would like something special, but am stuck. Any ideas would be appreciated.

My 3 year old dd went to the best party ever last year. There were about 10 little girls and one boy (and toddling ds) and the whole party was centred, very successfully, around a large low table (4x Ikea kids tables all put together). On it there was glue, glitter, sparkly sequins, coloured feathers, crayons, bits of coloured paper and scissors, little pom poms, sweetie wrappers, tin foil etc (a lot of this can be got from £1 shops). The 'mummy' had cut out cardbourd teapot shapes (about the size of a dinner plate) and painted them pink. What the little girls(and a lot of their mummies if truth be known) did absolutely happily for ages, was cut out and stick all manner of things onto their teapots. Then the food came, served on the same table and a game of pass the parcel and then, before we knew it, it was party bag time and time to go. And they all had a teapot to take home as a souvenir. Ours decorates the tea cupboard! I will certainly be doing something like this for my dd. The trick is to limit the number of boys, as most are not as interested as the girls in doing this kind of thing.

Some soft play areas will let you have it exclusively for a fee.I don't know where you're based but near me (S London) there are two....

Wacky Warehouse £99 for up to 15 children, food and party bags inc. only do Sundays though so gets booked pretty far in advance. Get to eat and then an hours play all on your own.

Playtown £175 for the whole place (very big and very nice for adults - comfy leather sofas etc) but doesn't include food or party stuff. I'd imagine they only do it on sundays too.

Might be worth asking at your local one?

DS2 had his 2nd birthday party at a little one at the local pool, and we had it to ourselves then, we had a broad range of ages and I think it worked really well. DS1 had a (non-exclusive!) party at playzone last year and DS2 is getting the exclusive WW one this year (he'll be 5) It so much less stressful than organising games etc, and parnts are grateful for you wearing out their kids!

OOps just to add no limits on numbers with the playzone one.

Also, to add to what CHa said, at DS2s party we bought plain party hats and they decorated them before eating - lots of glue and feathers and sequins and glitter - great fun!

Tumble tots can host parties at any given venue as long as it's large enough (church hall?) and it's an excellent arrangements of soft play, lunch and then more play!

Bubbles, we just had dd's 3rd. i'm a fan of keeping it simple (and cheap) at this stage, as once they go to school, bday parties turn into hideous competitive spectaculars (round here at any rate). at 3, simply having people round for a cake and candles is big fun and not to be understimated IYKWIM.
we had about 6 little girls aged between 2.5-5, plus a few crawlers (all kids of our good friends), and they had sandwiches and cake and chocolate crispies and wore hats and blew hooters, and then we let them run riot (and more or less unsupervised) through the house... hide and seek, dressing up, the wendy house got a lot of heavy use, there was loads of excited screaming, while the adults got mildly tiddly and ate loads of cake downstairs.
two good tips someone told me: make it clear when the party begins, and when it ends on the invite;
and use paper plates and cups so you just throw everything in the bin at the end

Sounds like a party at mine - mayhem but just as much fun for the grown ups! Young children are just as happy at another child's house because of the novelty of the different toys. Structure it around pass the parcel or musical chairs. Maybe get one of those spinny lights and create a disco area.

Along with the usual running around like mad things and loads of party food, we did cake decorating for my dd's 3rd. I made a large quantity of cupcakes and then put tem on the table with some big pots of shop bought butter icing and all manner of sweeties and little sprinkles etc to decorate them with. The adults did as many as the kids. Greatr fun. They took some home and ate some there.

Bubbles, remind me who you used to be?

ooh that's a lovely idea, i'll pinch that for next year

For my ds's 3rd bday, dd's 2nd bday and ds's 4th bday I have rented a helium tank from a local balloon place (found it with a search online). For £39 it came with 50 balloons. I blew up a dozen before hand for decoration and then let dh entertain the children with blowing the rest up during the party. He also did lots of daffy duck impersonations by inhaling the helium (men!). I then gave each child 5 balloons to take home instead of a party bag. Fun was had by all and I didn't have to do anything else. (Also had cake from Costco...cheap and yummy)