Shirley's party advice thread part 2

[stealthsquiggle]

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

Hello my dd is having her 6th birthday party 2 weeks on saturday, using a village hall and keeping it fairly basic (no themes!!) there is roughly about 20 children coming. My question is how many party games should I be aiming for?

At the moment I have

Musical bumps
pass the parcel
musical statues
pin the horn on the unicorn

Its a 2 hour party (11am-1pm) but am thinking food will be 30 -40 mins

Did wonder about some sort of dance off??

Does that sound about right and if not what other games can you suggest??!

girliefriend I think you need to consider some sort of craft activity to burn up some time - games go quicker than you think, IME - max 10 mins each.

Blathers - I just looked - and I only have 5 left - I suspect DD [glares] (whose teacher said slightly wearily "she makes things. out of everything. all the time") but it's possible that I just can't count. Sorry....

Decorating biscuits goes down well we've found girliefriend

No problems stealth, I'll order some, I'm sure they'll be another party, either of mine or on here, to use up the extras

Blathers that pizza kit is a great idea. But looks expensive for what it is. Effectively you're paying for a segmented choc mould and a pizza box as the choc and sweets would be peanuts. Can we not source segmented mould instead cos you dont need the box either. In fact to save you hacking choc into triangles and risk it breaking. Look at making individual triangles like pizza segments. What is triangular that you could set choc into.

Girliefriend def think a craft activity or a pinata, that could take some bashing up to kill time.

item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=390352858662&index=2&nav=SEARCH&nid=24406447443

Its quite right angled equilateral but could work out cheaper?

Oh blathers i have 10 bags they measure 26cm w x 30cm l.

Too big?

I know how you could make chocolate pizza slices.

Buy one (or more) individually boxed slices of cake/cheescake/whatever. Scoff cake, and use box as chocolate mould.

aaagh I need help
I went to my local supermarket and they had none of the stuff Ineed for making the cake!
Is there one website I could order from that would have the following

ready rolled icing
brown & black food colouring pastes (am assuming this is soft ready made icing?) Can I colour white stuff rather than buy all colours readymade or is that a bad idea?
sugar glue (or is this just melted sugar? )
black food colouring pen

As you can see I am new to this fancy cake malarkey (sp)

blathers your pizza party sounds great
DW I had DD by ELC on the 6th Feb

OK. Sitsyou. Your list.

ready rolled icing - don't bother, really - but did they really not have any? Most do...
brown & black food colouring pastes (am assuming this is soft ready made icing?) Can I colour white stuff rather than buy all colours readymade or is that a bad idea?

food colouring pastes are just the colour - look like this - you can colour your own, or buy icing ready coloured

sugar glue (or is this just melted sugar? ) - don't bother. mush a bit of icing with a tiny bit of water and use that

black food colouring pen - don't bother - use a paintbrush and some colour paste instead - the pens are rubbish (IMO).

Stealth i was just tidying up thinking in a minute someone will come up with something so obvious and i'll feel a right knob ha ha.

Sitsyou.... Firstly im hoping i wont wait til 6th as getting painful
second do not try to colour black yourself it will not go well. There are sugarcraft websites

www.cakecraftshop.co.uk/shop/8/107/790/

Order teddy brown, black and any colours. You could color white sugar paste you just need paste colouring but its 3quid a pot and you use a cocktail stick prick's worth so if your not into making lots of cakes just buy ready coloured. And the colouring pen. Sugar glue is a clear glucose glue. If its to stick noses and ears on you could wet the icing but glue will hold better.

Look on the link and you should be able to get it all.

Cross posts. Stealths advice all good.

the place DrsW linked to is good - I have used them.

Alternatively, take yourself and your instructions here (or somewhere similar) and throw yourself upon their mercy. Cake people are, IME, nice and are always happy to give advice as well as selling you the stuff you need. Black is a PITA to colour yourself (you always end up with grey) so I would buy it if you can.

thank you both.
No they didn't have any! (I have seen and bought it before though but it may have been somewhere else

will order ready coloured stuff for the teddy I think and maybe one pot of black stuff. For the balloons I can just paint on the colours or mix it with white icing
Is colouring paste different to regular food colouring then?

cross posts - Stealth I think I would be too embarrassed to go there!

Will go with that website providing they can deliver in time

Yes, colouring paste is different - it is (as the name suggests) a paste, and about 1000 times stronger than liquid food colouring.

It might make stuff a bit clearer if you can borrow a cake decorating book (any one by Lindy Smith or Debbie Brown would be fine) from the libary - they all have a section on tools and materials at the beginning.

that might be a good idea stealth. I might get that Debbie Brown easy cakes book if this one goes well

Thank you DW. I'm just a bit worried that my meagre party bag offering might look a little lost in a bigger bag. Plus, I'm feeling guilty because you already sent me teddy jelly mould and I haven't been able to return the favour for those yet!

Don't slices of cheesecake etc usually come just surrounded in strips of cardboard? I'm not sure I've ever had cake in a plastic wedge. Sounds a lot cheaper than my option though which was this. Although I could persuade myself that I needed a silicone mould for future baking I might have a look in TK Maxx next time I'm close and see if they have any cheap ones.

I think Stealth and DW have you covered for your list sits. Good luck with your sugar crafting :)

You obviously don't but tacky posh enough cake Blathers. I am pretty sure waitrose/M&S and the like do it - this is the sort of thing (although clearly you would need to eat the cake and then inspect the box closely to see if it is right)

I'm doing weight watchers at the moment. I'm not allowed cake

I might have to make an exception for the party though

While googling, I found a picture of what I hope the finished product would look like. Something like this If I get the right size mould, it should fit nicely in the point of one of those cellophane cones.

that looks fab - and TBH I think you could do it in a normal cake tin and just cut it with a hot knife - or a silicone one if you need an excuse to buy one

That probably is the easiest way :)

I don't want to make them too thick and heavy as I'll have the parents unhappy with me for sugar-ing up their children so it might not be too hard to cut.

Shall I just do chocolate with brightly coloured Jelly beans, sprinkles etc on or some sort of Rocky road bar?

Yes do a trial run with chocolate in a sandwich cake tin with a hot knife first. I'll eat a variety of cake sluces as a tester for you. Im mahooosive anyway and cake is def good for the baby. And dont worry about the teddy moulds. We'll just all have to keep stores and pass them round. Like book swap but party tat. Shirley's disappeared and shes got the best stash. We really should get a proper thread with faqs for all the top questions like games, food and ideas all pooled together really. You know to look like we actually know what we're talking about. Instead we just all have cake envy

Chocolate and jellies may taste eww. Maybe white choc shavings, choc buttons, mini marshmallows and honeycomb/biscuits. Hmmmmm make me some too.

You, me and Stealth should do our own blog DW. We could take on that deserter Party Spanner!