I love giving parties, do you need some ideas?

[ShirleyKnot]

Hello!

If you don't know me I'm Shirley and I'm a great lover of planning parties. I do a blog about it (which I'm not going to link here, but if you look on the bloggers network for PartySpanner you'll find me)

ANYWAY

If you're chucking a do, I might be able to help - I'm not a business, I don't charge for my ideas or owt, I just love to trawl the internet find good invite ideas, games and food.

Jump in and I'll see if I can help.

DoctorsWife - dogs will just have to stay in the car (with or without stepmum) at least until there are no 'extra' LOs in the house.

..this is why I separate family from friends parties (with the exception of my DB and parents who are unpaid and fairly obedient helpers at all my DC's parties )

One word of warning on the halloween thing - some DC (like my DS [sigh]) are fairly thoroughly freaked by the "scary" stuff, so you might need a Plan B for convincing sobbing child that they are not really scabs and ogres fingers (although, TBH, given that they are 4, how many of them will stop to read the labels anyway ?)

I wish i could seperate the parties. My mum says it year on year. But as dd is only 3 she hasnt got nursery friends really so her circle is like this... Adores our niece, niece and dd share godmother who cant have children, she gets invited as often comments she gets left out being childless. Godmother has a niece and nephew, twins. Dd adores them so they come too with godmothers sister. Mil wants to come to kids party as she then sees all three of her grandchildren in one hit. Sil is best friends with godmother so takes opportunity to see her. So after that i invite my mum dad and step parents and the house is full. Its very incestuous.

Hows the party plans going? 48hrs to go, what have you sorted?

It does get a little easier once they are at school - or at least, you get more ruthless about extended family invites and/or give up trying to do it at home!

what have I sorted ?

Um - cake is baked, decorations made, all will be assembled tonight once DC are in bed.

DS has tried out craft activity for me, so I will get a debrief from him (his look great) and box all that up tonight

Need to sort hat-decorating stuff

Aprons done except for adults.

Have done NOTHING (other than shopping) about the rest of the food. Help. Panic.

Have made and oh bugger forgotten to freeze fairy cakes - will go and stick those in freezer now to come back out on Sunday morning

Oh and I have a full programme of Saturday stuff + another party to attend with DD tomorrow.

Did I mention ?

What food are you doing? Im one for cooking from scratch and big pressure to whip stuff up but i dont think i can be bothered. Esp for dog wielding cretins.

My DC are unfortunately old enough to have a list as long as my arm of what constitutes "proper" party food and it is pretty much all home made.

Oh go on tell me what. I love the food threads please indulge me!

pizza bases for them to top themselves
sauce and toppings for same
cupcakes for them to ice
icing, sprinkles, etc for same

mini sausages
crisps

normally sandwiches but I am refusing to do those on the basis that they have pizzas

biscuits in the shape of birthday child's age
mars bar krispie cake
rocky road (but they have forgotten that and are not going to get it this time)
fairy cakes
main cake

...I think that's about it!

Hmmmm im stealing this idea for when dc's are older. (dc's plural arghhhhh - scary)

Just got back from DS's first ever 'big school' disco. He's danced like a loon, eaten too many sweets and won the prize for best fancy dress! A good night was had by all :)

Only just seen this thread, for some reason I assumed it was adult parties only (as in 'not kids', not 'Friday night' ). Sorry to hear you've had bad news Shirley. Hope you are doing ok in the circs.

Can I insensitively crash on and ask everyone else if they have any suggestions for a Star Wars party for 8 or so 5-year-old boys??!

Last year we hired the village hall but found it quite stress trying to clean up in time etc. so are having it at home and I'm already panicking a bit about that many not-so-small boys creating havoc.

I'm reasonably confident about being able to do a passable stormtrooper cake, and I've cunningly timed it from 2-4pm so I don't have to feed them too much, but I'm feeling a bit lacking in inspiration for games/activities.

Any help very much appreciated!!

Oh lord first football now star wars. Im stumped again. Dont worry minnie someone will be along with some ideas. Can you make a pinata and hit with light sabres?

Blathers what was he dressed as?

minnie I can do Star Wars - just not right now. Monday!

Oooh, intrigued as to your suggestions, stealth!

My initial thought to making a pinata was 'WTF?' but, a quick google suggests it's relatively simple. And I could just do a Deathstar as that's the simplest shape

I think doctors suggestion of bashing a pinata with light sabres is genius! and a Deathstar would be relatively easy to make too.

Cake - maybe the Millenium Falcon? It's flat-ish so should be relatively easy to cut out of a sheet cake

A quick google showed loads of places doing Star Wars themed invites, plates, cups, napkins and bunting so that should be fairly easy. Could you get them all to dress up or would you end up with a room full of Anakins? Either that or you'd get lynched by the parents of the wannabe Darth Mauls/R2D2s

I found a good website suggesting that you could make normal party games more star wars by putting the children into teams - Droids and Clones or Light and Dark side - before or at the very start of the party and letting them score points for thier team. They suggested "Sack races, three legged relays" and "Hide cards that say Clone and Droid (equal amount of each). Teams have to find all of their cards - first team to find them all wins." There was also a 'Jedi Training course' - aka obstacle course and 'Light Sabre Training' - getting the boys in pairs and getting them to keep a balloon off the floor for using their Sabres. The team to keep it going for the longest wins.

There were loads more ideas, the website is here

I think with all that you could get away without theming the food past the cake.

It sounds like it could be a lot of fun

doctors He was a pirate. A very cute gruesome pirate

Ah yes i recall you saying his sash had arrived now. Beams that my pinata idea was good but then recoils at the star wars chat. Not a bloody clue what your on about.

Stealth be sure to let us know how tomorrow goes and post a picture of the cake!!

He was so pleased with his outfit and thanks to hand-me-downs and wardrobe raiding, it only cost me about a fiver :) I've stuck a picture on my profile.

How can you have never seen Star Wars?!

Looking forward to seeing stealth's cake too. Hope the party goes well.

Hope you're feeling brighter too Shirley.

MY DH would love these Star Wars ideas. If only DS was into Star Wars! I have only a vague idea what it is all about too DoctorsWife. Love the idea of bashing a pinata with light sabres though!

Have booked the party now including an appearance by Roary the Tiger (local team mascot) and very excited. Haven't told DS yet as it is a while away. Just had a great game of blind man's bluff with DS this morning and had forgotten how much fun it is so going to play it at our halloween party (inspired by this thread!).

Blathers he looks very very cute and i love the pics of DC's looking like twins! I remember Ive seen your profile before peeking at your cake skills. Very very nice.

I have seen Star Wars at least the first three (which are actually the last three is that right) anyway I saw them when I was a kid and so I'm behind the times! I know that anekin is actually vader or something like that. After that i'm lost! And I know Vader is lukes father. Honestly if this baby is a boy I dread to think what an embarrassment I will be!

I never did find the bloody bunting. It's in the safe place I put it last time. I even bribed DS to look.

Cake photos are on my flickr photostream, but links are beyond me and my 'phone, especially this morning [yawn].

star wars ideas to follow as soon as I get on the train and get my laptop working .

Arghhh stealth how how i can i see your flicker stream? Get that laptop on and give us a proper party update!!!!

photos here

Star Wars - I haven't done it myself, but I did provide the cake and help at a Star Wars party for DS's friend.

They all made light sabres - I shall hunt later and find the instructions, but it involved lengths of pipe insulation for the blade (thus limiting the damage they were capable of) and cardboard tube for the handle.

We split them into red and blue teams (dark side vs light didn't really work as, at the time, they were all Jedi and none of them wanted to be on the dark side ) - and the most popular game was to give each side a balloon (of appropriate colour) and, using only their light sabres (and the force, naturally) they had to keep it in the air for as long as they could.

With a willing adult, you can also play a "use the force" variant of Grandfather's footsteps. We also did "pin the light sabre on the Jedi" but that involved print support like DoctorsWife has - photoshopped image, printed at poster size.

The cake I did was R2D2. I don't recommend it unless you have the time and inclination - it nearly killed me - but the hit of the whole thing could be replicated in a 2D version - I imbedded a blue LED (get one out of those light-up balloons you can get) in the appropriate place on R2 - which is really effective if you can get the room properly dark when you take the cake in.

Damn it stealth talk about upping the ante in the cake stakes. Im scared to try the gruffalo one now. Your cake in fantastic. I'm gonna go all sugarcrafter now and ask have you made all the items in sugarpaste or modelling paste? And how did you make tiny little eggs?

And putting an led in a cake. I think i need to bow out gracefully now. Fantastic effort

All the utensils, etc are in modelling paste (the stuff they sell as gum paste or flower paste) - the figure was a 50/50 mix of that and sugarpaste (clothes are modelling paste), and her hair is sugarpaste + trex (shortening) to get it through the sugar shaper. Most of the colour (apart from the figure herself) is painted on.

The eggs were the whole reason I wanted to do the cake (and then I got carried away...) - I saw them done on another cake. They are piping gel (as are the coffee and the cake mix in the bowl and on her spoon/face) - I just did a blob of gel and then "injected" yellow colour paste in for the yolk.

You have to do the Gruffalo - I am jealous of the opportunity (and about to buy the book for 1yo GodDaughter so that I can start working on her to want a gruffalo party)

variant on the light saber making here - we used pipe insulation because it was cheaper, and a piece of carboard tube, secured with duct tape, for the handle - I think we got them to colour the handles so it kept them busy a bit longer.

Some fantastic ideas, thank you - especially as we have some pipe insulation hanging around, yay!

I'm also debating Jedi robes for me, DH and DD2 (DD1 can wear her big brother's white hoodie and be Leia) although a) can't sew and b) don't have a sewing machine?