Shirley's party advice thread part 2

[stealthsquiggle]

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

They will be age 10/12 I forgot to add!

Oooh, that's a good one Glaikit!! I love it.

Could you do the cake like the mad hatters hat maybe? Although a cake stand with cup cakes would probably be more in keeping. Could you make one out of more mismatched tea sets? Glue together plates of ascending sizes with tea cups between the layers to make a sort of higgldy-piggledy cake stand?

Lots of bunting for decoration? I'm sure you could make some (or get some made) with "Happy Unbirthday" on.

Croquet as you party game is the obvious choice.

Invitations with "Please do not be late for a very important date..."

"Welcome to wonderland" sign on the back door as you take the gusts through to the back garden.

Small rose bushes to decorate the table?

As well as normal sized mismatched crockery, could you get some tiny dolls house ones (I saw a chine dolls teas set in poundland last month) and a couple of those huge, planter sized ones to really mess around with the sense of scale.

Put little toothpick flags in the cakes with "Eat me" on and serve drinks in stoppered glass bottles with "Drink me" on luggage tags tied to the necks.

Hide a toy mouse inside one of the teapots on the table.

If you have a tree, you could sit a Cheshire cat - or just a Cheshire cat smile in it.

Fill vases - or more teapots - with flowers from the book, like tiger lilies, daisies, roses, violets, and larkspur

Play "pin the grin on the Cheshire Cat"

You could get 'Paint your own' mugs or plates as another good party game. Would be great for this age group who would probably create something lovely that they'd want to keep.

I found some other great party game ideas too -
Do the Caucus race. Make your guests run around in a circle, and when you shout 'stop' the last one to sit down/run to the middle is out. Or make a caucus version of the game musical chairs, where you remove one of the chairs each round and people have to find a chair to sit on when the music (the caucus race song from the Disney movie) stops.
Make up silly riddles
Play 'Paint the roses red'. Buy some fabric white roses and red paint (or markers). The person (or team) who finishes painting his rose first wins. You could give time penalties for sloppy painting or spilled drops. You could also set a general time limit and have someone dressed as the Queen of Hearts storm into the room when the time is up.
Buy some basic top hats and let your guests decorate them
Hide a small golden key or a White Rabbit plush and have your guests find it

There is loads more stuff here

You could go crazy with this idea, there's just so much to do!!

Blimey blathers that was good!

Glaikit, DB bought me a lovely (if slightly bonkers) book called "everything Alice" for Christmas, which is full of craft-type ideas. I shall have a peruse later and see if there is anything relevant in there for you.

I think you can tell how tired I was after yesterday's birthday parties by the spelling though

I have been reading the book and I think you need to get a copy, Glaikit (here) - there is so much stuff in there you could use - from invitations to games to crafts to decorations to food to playing card bunting - and lots of photocopy-able templates and stuff in the back. I am now wondering how old DD would have to be to convince her to have a mad hatter's tea party (I think I have missed the boat with DS, for a while at least - he would love it but I am not sure how many other 10yo boys would).

top hats - my DB had a (grown up) mad hatter party and they just bought loads of card, crepe paper, plus his GFs craft hoard, and produced some amazing hats, so I have reservations about limiting them to top hats, but I guess it is better to have a starting point.

Also, with the addition of some "eat me" tags, a selection of cupcake related crafts would work.

[squeal]

I just won a £25 Amazon voucher (work thing). Excuse me while I prioritise my wishlist....

Blathers - how did the party go - was this the family one, or the pizza one, or both?

Yesterday was the family one. I'd crowbarred it in to this weekend as it was the only one everyone could do.

DH was at work from 2am until 1pm so he was gone for the morning and tired for the afternoon ad Ds had a party at a soft play place for a girl from school over lunchtime so my Mum, Sister, Brother and his GF ended up coming to soft play with us to help keep DD amused. Once the party was over and we'd found DS - the soft play place LOST him! - we came home so DS could open his present from them. They'd clubbed together to get him an enormous Lego set which set the scene for the cake nicely. Once that had been built, I made steak sandwiches and home made pizzas and we all stuffed ourselves silly :) DS then begged to have his cake cut so we did the candles and then all had a slice. It was nice. The chocolate one was better than the lemon but both worked well. DH was supposed to take the last of it to work today so it can stop tempting me but he forgot so I'm having to rely on willpower instead.

I had yesterday off but I really need to be good for this week so that I can have legoland weekend off too and still attempt to make it to goal sometime soon!

Pizza party is on Thursday. Party bags are done - each is named and has a sticker book, jelly pizza, chocolate pizza and personalised apron in - and I have the badge kits and pens ready to go and a birthday banner for the table. Just need to get the traditional helium balloon. I think I might make the cake on the day as DH has the day off and the party isn't until 4.30pm. I'll probably prep the toppings but bake the base and decorate in the morning so it's fresh. My cake leveller arrived on time to do the lego blocks so I'll be able to use that to make sure the pizza sits nicely too. DH should be bringing the pizza box to serve it in home tonight I hope.

Very of the Amazon voucher! I've just added the Alice book to my wish list as I quite fancy a Wonderland party too now! Maybe when DD is a little older :)

I am glad the Lego cake went down well - DS's comment was based on him assuming I was cake-researching - he wanted to know who was going to get a Lego cake

Amazon voucher went on this and this in the end.

prepped toppings and last-minute assembly sound wise to me.

Ah, a cake pops books to go with your cake pops maker. Loving the skulls, they'd be fab at a halloweeen party.

I've met the GF twice now. She's nice. She pitched in and helped at DD's party so automatically got brownie points here. Plus, she seems to genuinely adore Dbro which I approve of obviously :)

I think I might make the mushrooms in the next day or two. I've got some off white sugar paste and a black and brown food colouring pen to do the gills with. My circle cutter might have been a rubbish size for Lego black blobs but I think it'll be about perfect for fruit leather pepperoni.

Grated white chocolate or yellow ready roll for icing do you think? Or a mixture?

when you said skulls I thought I had linked to the wrong thing for the first bit - also on wishlist is this

Cake pop makes hasn't arrived yet [sulk] - Lakeland clearly don't understand that it needs to be in and hidden established as something I have had for "ages" before DH sees it.

GF who pitches in at parties definitely scores good points. My DB2's ex was like that (one of many reasons why my parents are driving poor DB nuts telling him he should get back together with her )

I think a mix of chocolate and sugar paste for cheese would work best - and the chocolate needs to be not too cold when grated so that you don't get powdered chocolate.

Right, well that's gone on my wishlist too!! :)

I already have 2 of these waiting for a halloween party so they'll go together beautifully.

I thought maybe a mix would work best. The two tone 'cheese' would look realistic I think. I grated it at room temp when I did the chocolate pizza and it worked well. Looked very cheese-y.

LOL - I could carry on - there is a lot of stuff which I will never get on my wishlist - including gingerbread ninja cutters

I suspect we could just clone your list onto mine and I'd be happy stealth

Do you have one of these on yours?

What I need is a proper zester. Could you suggest a good one. My grater is rubbish and I end up with hardly anything and my other one (looks a bit like this ) makes the strips too big.

I need a microplane one I think but they're all so expensive!

LOL - I have seen that cake sandwich - but it's not on my list (yet). I also don't have a giant cupcake tin but I am not sure if I want one of those. Similarly lots of fun shaped tins - I like them, but I worry that they limit the decorating possibilities a lot.

I use a microplane grater for zesting - I can't remember where we got them from (we have one medium and one fine) but I can't remember them being as expensive as the ones on Amazon seem to be - how about this (we use those suppliers a lot)?

That's a better price. The Amazon ones are 4 times that!

I just want the sandwich one so I can make a proper Victoria "sandwich" :) Might work really well for your party actually Glaikit while you're messing with scale? I am sooo tempted to make myself a vintage stacked crockery cake stand, I think it could look so good.

Glaikit one of the things that appeals most about your party idea would be car-boot shopping for mismatched china and cake stands (although I suspect those might be harder to find) - you could also make a cake stand out of plates and teacups if they were cheap enough that you didn't ming glueing them together?

mad hatter cake

cake pop maker has arrived

I am working (no, really, I am working), I cannot go and play with my new toy yet...it's killing me

Wow, some amazing suggestions! You lot ROCK! Now to go through it all, I just know Ill want to do it all

I have one cake stand already, and home bargains sell them for £2.99, so thats not a problem.

DH came home with an empty pizza box tonight!! I'm all excited.

Now, do I leave it as it is - branded with Pizza Express logos - or do my own graphics for it?