Shirley's party advice thread part 2

[stealthsquiggle]

...can I take the liberty of starting another thread, since the other one filled up?

[Blatherskite]

New thread linky

[stealthsquiggle]

Off to start a new thread..

[stealthsquiggle]

I would love a big enough party excuse to do a house-shaped cake.

Whereabouts in Wales?

[Doilooklikeatourist]

Hee hee ! Hide most of the booze !
House shaped cake ? Good idea ( ponders )

[Doilooklikeatourist]

Ho no I've had a drink too ! Hic
Chilli a v good idea , and baked potatoe as we have an Aga in the dream house ( and a paddock , so a bonfire / barbecue was an idea until we remembered we live in Wales and it's April , bring a wellies party ? )
Had thought of lots of bread, cheese board , big bowl of pasta (macaroni cheese ?) and home baked ham , salads . Vat of chilli sounds and smells good .

[Blatherskite]

"you're baking urge" You can tell I've had a drink!

Nice to see Stealth and I are along the same lines though :)

[stealthsquiggle]

LOL at massive x-post

[stealthsquiggle]

Housewarming party sounds great. Is your house a simple enough shape to do a house-shaped cake? That would be fun, ans should feed 50..

I would fill the oven with baked potatoes, make a huge chilli, and beg/borrow/steal a Costco card to go and buy sandwich platters, giant things of salad, and huge pizzas.

Presumably people will bring booze with them, so I would fill a tub of some sort with ice and a couple of boxes of beer, and get a couple of cases of wine but hide most of it.

[Blatherskite]

Welcome tourist :)

If it hadn't been bucketing it down all day - and for the forseeable future according to the weather report - I'd suggest a BBQ, but as it's not looking like outdoor kind of weather..... How about making up a huge pot of chilli or similar?

If you've got a slowcooker you could make and serve it in that to keep it warm - although a parge pot would work just as well if you don't - and then just serve it with huge bowls of salad, baked potatoes and maybe even fresh, homemade bread to satisfy you're baking urge and make the house smell all warm and homely? Something like that would have the added bonus of being not too expensive per head and you could make it all in advance and just leave it doing it's thing which would help with preparation.

You could maybe do a chilli and a slow cooked chicken type thing for variety, maybe a bolognese-y ytpe thing?

Hopefully, most people would bring wine/beer with them to a housewarming so you shouldn't necessarily need to provide all the drinks for the day, just enough to get everyone going and be able to offer everyone a cold one as they came through the door.

[Doilooklikeatourist]

Hallo , excuse me gate crashing your party , just hoping for some tips .
We have just moved into the dream house and are busy planning a house warming paint kitchen , sort out heating , change lighting which is next Saturday .
Like fools we invited about 50 people , ( friends , family , new neighbours , teenage children's friends ) and so far only 1 person can't come .
I can borrow plates, glasses , cutlery etc ... But what food shall we serve ? Love baking and desparately want to make a cake .
How much wine do we get in ? Beer ? Juice ?
Advice desperately needed welcome . Please.

[Blatherskite]

DS has his personalised coat of arms t-shirt. I'm going to get that kid beaten up one day with my inability to just buy him an outfit

[stealthsquiggle]

Have fun, Blathers (and grab any good ideas!)

I was thinking of whether DD's outfit needs accessories, but given that my sewing machine is in for service [sniff] my options are limited.

[Blatherskite]

One place was doing a size 2-3 on ebay but it's out of stock.

DS is off to his Knights and Princesses party tomorrow. I shall report back

[stealthsquiggle]

Here you go - Letterbox - but still the smallest size is 3-5 (and I definitely didn't pay that much for it!)

[leftmysociallifeatthedoor]

Oh. She's only 18m so I'll have to wait a bit anyways I think. Humph.

also she doesn't really like dressing up least of all in a dress, which according to her reactions are evil evil things

[Blatherskite]

Just realised it says no stock. There were 5 or 6 places doing the same dress when I searched though so I'm sure someone else will have one.

[stealthsquiggle]

That's the one, exactly. DD's came from some sale or other - GLTC or Letterbox, possibly? DH gave me a look but she has worn it quite a lot (she is a bit more prone to random dressing up at home than DS ever was). I do also have a brilliant if I say so myself homemade Captain Patch costume (from The Night Pirates) which is about the right size, so I might try and fail to persuade her to wear that.

[Blatherskite]

Ebay - reversible pirate/princess dress

I looked for one for DD a little while ago :)

[TheScottishPlayer]

Ooh, it was cheaper I'd be tempted!

[stealthsquiggle]

pirate party planning book

[TheScottishPlayer]

I like all the singed edges idea for invites, but I am concerned that I could burn down the kitchen!

There are so many good ideas on here, I think I'm going to need a nice new notebook for planning (I'm a big fan of stationary!).

[leftmysociallifeatthedoor]

Cool. Our invites were going to be white sheets of paper dipped in tea, crinkled up and dried and then singed round the edges and written on with permanent marker. fortunately unfortunately we ran out of time so got Tesco ones!

Loving the reversible dress idea - wonder where I could get one for dd!

[Blatherskite]

I saw a suggestion on a website last night which said they'd made invites which looked like flags with a Skull and Crossbones on ones side and a map with the invite text on the other side.

They sounded like lots of fun, especially for your age group.

[stealthsquiggle]

very cool, sociallife. TBH if it had been a proper pirates party I probably would have done somethinf similar, but it was mostly (exclusively, if you asked DD) princesses and the two moulds matched...

Interestingly, when invited to a "pirates and princesses" party which is in a couple of weeks, DD has firmly opted to be a pirate (she has a reversible dress which is princess on one side and pirate on the other, conveniently) .

[leftmysociallifeatthedoor]

The cupcakes I did were like this