Shirley's party advice part 3 - in which Shirley may make a guest appearance

[stealthsquiggle]

We appear to have filled another thread

No way to 20 kids! It was in my house. 10 kids and 30 odd adults

I had the same issue regarding childrens ages etc howver all the families were known to me so i was going to group them into teams. Like my dd has childless couple godparents but i always invite them and their niece and nephew. And my sil and her kids etc etc. so i thought about teams, scavenger style sheets like do a leaf rubbing/ find a fir cone/ what colour is the tea shop sign etc and send them off, well all go off i'd be on my dc's team. Then leave dh and my mother tutting guarding the food and loot etc.

Prize giving for correct answers, like sweets for the party bag and an overall prize. Could you do it like that? Theres no real winner cos you'll even it all up with sweets so it wouldnt matter too much if everyone pooled together. Or just do it together follow a route looking for the next item brining you back to base. Save the playground for winding up time when you've run out of planned stuff or you're prepping the cake etc?

I'm waffling too. My mind goes gruffaloing and i cant stop. And this year my dd said in the back if the car 'ooo i could have gruffalo's child when i'm four couldnt i mum?'

No. It is a complete sentence indeed.

Yes to masks!!! Or you could download image to turn into a badge and put it around your gazebo too so passers by willsee its your party.

Oh yes DW, I am liking your style.
I also thought about printing off characters and sticking them around the place to hunt the character. It's all a varient of the same theme though, so I definately need to think of seperate games. But going on a scavenger hunt could be really good. Especially if I could incorporate all of the elements. Oh no, wait, that means less games if I do that! But yes, the puzzle/pairs game is good as that can be transferred into the house if need be.
Guarding the food isn't a problem. I will have about 30 adults to go with the extremely small number of kids and I can guarantee none of them will be dumb enough to tramp through the woods with me!
I am so looking forward to this party! I want it now!!
And putting prizes into a party bag is a fab idea too. Less sugar circulating the party.
Where did you get your party bag bits from? I was going to pinch someone else's idea about a cone of sweets instead of, as I can never find the stuff cheap enough, but would prefer to stay on theme. Although a cone of popcorn could be gruffalo crumble and so cheap it'd be criminal. Possibly too criminal.......

LOL at both of you waffling - Nonsense you might have noticed that you have inadvertently wandered into the home of like-minded party nutters enthusiasts.

It is me who is mad enough to routinely have 20 DC (although the make up and dynamic and general atrocious behaviour at parties of DD's year group is causing me to consider a complete about face in my objection to "girls only" parties) but never, ever, at home (and sadly not in parks either as I have very badly planned October and November born DC)

popcorn for gruffalo crumble would be inspired - especially if you added chocolate to make it brown (not sure how that would work, but I am sure there must be a way). You could tie something to it - like one of these, maybe? - that and a balloon would be more than enough IMHO.

I did the cones of sweets. It was really easy and very cheap as I got huge tubs from Costco as I was doing almost 30 cones.

Love, love, love the chocolate popcorn idea! Could you do chocolate-y popcorn with purple sprinkles prickles, orange smarties eyes and green jelly tots warts maybe to go the whole hog?

I'm know you can find single coloured sprinkles easily and the sweets shouldn't be too hard...

Will google for you after dinner.

Orange Smarties If you were feeling really dedicated, you could put a dot of black food colouring on each for the pupil

purple sprinkles or here

Chocolate popcorn recipe

Still looking for green sweets. Jelly beans are easy to get in a single colour and might be wart-ish?

Oh my LORD you lot are brilliant!!
I was thinking perhaps popcorn, a balloon and maybe a woodland creature whistle thing. Can you still get those? But I really like the pencil and dangler and the idea of chocolate popcorn and all the trimmings is just awesome!!
I'm going to be gutted when I have it all sorted. I'll want to keep adding things as it'll be done so early!
I also think the jelly beans would be brilliant. Perhaps a tad big in relation to the eyes, but as he's crumbled, I shouldn't think it'll matter. Could I make my own orange jazzies? No, no NO! No I bloody couldn't!!
Could we play a game where we actually crumble the gruffalo? Not sure I'm going to make sense here, but I was thinking of the invite saying something about going to look for/catch a gruffalo - and then going on our scavenger hunt/walk. I was thinking of just putting up a big cut out gruffalo somehwere (how???) but actually, if we could 'crumble' him, then they could be taking him home in their (truly inspired) cones. Am I overthinking, seeing as they're all so small? But we can't search for a gruffalo and not find him! I could always change the invite though. That'd be easier! :o
Unless they find him already crumbled? I am giving myself a headache.......

warts should be green jellytots, surely?

If you could fashion some gruffalo biscuits you could crumble those. Maybe have owl icecream and ask whether they'd like gruffalo crumble on top.

We had a link to good diy party bag stuff here:

madebybronwyn.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

In fact take a look at her other gruffalo ideas too.
My party bag stuff came from this fab shop near me that blathers went on a pilgrimage to. Things cost literally pence. I need to go in this week so i'll see whats left 'woodlandy' if you like. The other idea, would you be any good at cake pops? I toyed with trying to do a gruffalo fox and owl, then jelly snakes and choc/sugar mouse.

Jesus i apologise for my typing and failure to convert links today. D
We're all ill and dd2 wont be put down so theashing her hands on my iphone.

madebybronwyn.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

Thrashing even.

ggjjfg jjv ic

ffs!

Hmm, I reckon I will just change the invite (I keep forgetting I have months and months) and there's no need to then overthink everything.
In my excitement of reading about the gruffalo trimmings I didn't properly read the bit about jelly tots! D'oh! Jelly tots would be fab.
Owl ice cream - well. I have stolen an idea from someone else that I found on google and I am going to do a cone, with a scoop of ice cream and then 2 raisins for eyes and a jelly diamond (that you decorate cakes with? In 1972) for the beak. Looked really cool in the photo and you can't have a kids party without ice cream.
Hope you all feel better soon DW.
I am REALLY liking the popcorn cone, so I don't think I will do a traditional party bag. Taking home gruffalo crumble would be brilliant!

Another random question: Does anyone know the font used? Basically I want to scam as much as I can for free, so that would mean pinching using images from t'internet and making my own invites etc but they'd look even better in the proper font. Is that question too much of a naughty one?

Just looked at that link DW.

WTF is she on????
In my head, that is what my stuff will look like. In reality....................

Green jelly tots would be perfect as they have that bumpy, almost warty look to them (I'm never going to be able to eat them again now!) but I was trying to find something you could buy just green ones of to save waste.

Unless Nonesense really likes Jelly tots and doesn't mind eating all of the other colours :)

The pencils are lovely and would go wonderfully tied onto your cone of popcorn but I thought I'd link to these just in case - Owl whistles or wriggly snakes

When I did my sweets, I tied a teddy bear reflector into the ribbon round the top and it went down really well. You could even buy Gruffalo ribbon to tie the backs up with.

I do indeed like jelly tots! But, alas, green are my favourite.
Oh I really like those whistles! And the ribbon! The snakes are a bit (dare I say) cheap looking, but they suit my budget perfectly! Although I got DS1 a wooden one for his stocking at Christmas for a quid so I may keep looking around. I love the idea of tying a present to the ribbon and I hate the tat you usually get so I do try to make the effort to get something a bit fun or useful.

They are cheap but the owl whistles were more expensive so I thought I'd cover both ends of the spectrum :)

You can get rubber snakes that are less cheap but more expensive. I do think the cheap ones can be nice though, I remember being fascinated by the way they moved as a child.

DD is currently obsessed by the Gruffalo and can quote whole sections from memory so there is a very good chance I'll be pinching all of these ideas in December :)

Oh i had those cheap snakes too. Forgot them. The kids loved that crap!

Anyway in regard to the font, as i mentioned up the thread my dad is in graphics (actually typesetting and produces the artwork for huge companies - like the olympics) anyway, he can access pretty much any font and the gruffalo one is actually called something like axel scheffler2 or suchlike and wasnt available to use. My dad used Blackfly mambo for the best 'look'.

I had this image, but doctored to only 3 candles on the cake and dd's name on the cake.

cmistesting.edublogs.org/2009/05/27/happy-birthday-gruffalo/

Awww, DW that's a perfect picture! I'm still thinking of invite plans, mask, snake, log, badge etc. Not sure how any of these ideas would work, but I still have months to go thankfully!
Thanks for the font tips.

I tend to be style over substance! so I go for look and what I would like over what the kids would like!

Invite:
A big chocolate/sugared mouse with a luggage tag around it's neck? Perhaps with a Gruffalo stamp. Not sure a luggage tag could hold all of the info though...

Blathers - Go for it! I really thought DS would be 'over' the Gruffalo by now, but we still have to watch it and read both books EVERY day and now DS2 really enjoys it all too! As do I :o

Well, all I've got left to do on the Octonauts outfits is put some elastic on Barnacles boots, put the badges on and make Barnacles hat.

Then DS comes home with a request from School last night that we send them in dressed as their favourite animal next week! He wanted to be a Killer Whale but I think I've talked him into a Tiger. Looks like the sewing machine isn't going away just yet!