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

[stealthsquiggle]

We appear to have filled another thread

I've got my hall booked now :) they do a deal for hire of hall, bouncy castle and some soft play shapes (and even a member of staff to supervise the castle). It also has a huge park outside so hopefully we'll have some nice weather for the kids to play outside after the party.

I keep googling things to buy for it and am now looking for party bags. I'm thinking I might just get plain white bags and make them spotty / mr tumble myself as I can't really see any.

Also, what do you all usually put in party pags? I was thinking things like bubbles, sweets, crayons, a picture of mr tumble from cbeebies website to colour in and then I'm not sure what else.

Blathers did cellophane cones of sweets for toddlers before. Thats nice and cheap and easy to do.

m.partydelights.co.uk/product_detail.aspx?mobileredirect=true&ProductID=LOOTDOTS&src=gbase&utm_source=google&utm_medium=googlebase

Spotty cellophane

sayhello - it depends how OTT creative you want to be - you could get something like the multi coloured one in this (can't link properly, but it's efabrics.co.uk and it's £4.49/metre) and make bags?

I'm not very good at making things unfortunately, although I would love to be able to. I think I'll have to practice so when my girls are bigger I can go all out and make everything!

I'm starting to have doubts about my party now though. We have 2 hours booked but this has to include the setting up and clearing away. It doesn't seem very long for the things I had in mind. I'd thought of lots of party games we could do but the reality is we won't really have much time. By the time the kids have played on the bouncy castle, had something to eat, sang for the birthday girls it'll be home time.

Is one and a half hours enough for a party? Think I'll use 15 minutes either side to get things ready and tidied, if I get lots of help it should be time enough.

With littlies 1.5 hours is plenty, and TBH you will be challenged to corral them into more than one or two party games - at that age I would focus on the visual "theming" rather than on the party content IYSWIM. Mind you, you have to be careful - I had to go outside and talk one little girl into coming into DS's 3rd birthday party - the theme was monsters, and we had put monster footprints from the car park into the hall, and she was too scared of the monsters to come in .

1.5 is enough for littlies for sure. I agree focus on your theme and dint worry about the free play time.

Right, service of thanksgiving, bunting made, invites sent (bank holiday weekend so wanted to give a heads up), dd's gift is bought..tiffany necklace to put away for her (dd1 had one when we were well off, and i was wracked with guilt that dd2 wouldnt have the same, so i did it) order of service printed as readings are chosen.

I have just made the cake in an ikea trofast storage bucket!!! Jesus its heavy!!! Hope to god it comes out okay as im not in a hurry to do that again. I need to buy a rose each for the godparents.

Dh and struggled over the readings as our siblings are doing one each. One reading was about 'daddy' and we ruled it out as it made us cry! But dh said he loved it. Do you think it would be okay to get dd's godfather to read it out to dh at the 'reception'? I didnt want it in church as i'd look a mess crying but by the party i wont care. Dh really wanted it so i wanted to surprise him but i cant read it myself.

Is anyone of Facebook? I'm following 'Kara's Party Ideas' and she has some lovely stuff.

Very American (but some lovely stuff). I shall install the app on my iPod as soon as I can wrestle it away from DS.

OTOH maybe not - she wants £1.49 for her app, without any way to see if it is any good first.

I'd agree that 1.5 hours is more than enough at that age SayHello. At DS's 3rd birthday party last year we gave up on anything organised as they were having so much fun playing on the bouncy castle and the play equipment.

I'm intrigued at the making of a cake in a trofast tub!!!!

Scottish it was too big for any of my bowls. 1.6kg of fruit aline. Dont worry i cleaned it first..

But my oven is shit in a rented house and the bloody thing didnt cook!!!

Ive gotta do it all again on friday and drive 50 mins to my mums to use her oven. Nightmare.

What a pain. Only ikea would kids storage be oven proof though

I've just ordered some blue jelly for DS's pirate party! Very pleased it's back in stock in time.

I'm glad you all agree that 1.5 hours is plenty time to play, I thought it was when I booked it and then started worrying the next day.

Do you have all your pirate stuff for your sons party TheScottishPlayer? I've been looking on hobbycraft website and they have a lot of nice pirate stuff. I was in the shop today and picked up a load of spotty plates, napkins and cups and just been checking online to see if they have a tablecover. I've saw loads of things I want to get.

I know a girl who makes cakes and have asked her about doing me a spotty, mr tumble cake too.

Oh i meant i only mixed it in it i used a tin for baking. Or not baking as it turned out.

I did wonder

I pretty much know what I'm getting SayHello but I'll have a look on the hobby raft website to see of anything catches my eye.

Christening plans all sound fab, DrsW - what are the flowers - trees, or buckets, or somthing else altogether?

DH arrived home with a suitcase full of easter dinosaurs dragons and other stuff (the make-your-own dragons and some pencils and stuff). Easter Dinosaurs Dragons are larger than I expected. All I need to do now is work out how to make and attach their wings.

I was gonna ask you if it all arrived stealth, how was his trip?

I have no idea what flowers you know. In my head i want summery arrangements of peonies roses etc. im pretty confident to arrange them its just the cost really.

We've decided to move, a house haa come up in our village which puts me in the catchment for the school i want and that will be it then. No more moving until we can buy our own again one day. Anyway that means i'll have less free time what with breastfeeding too. So i may have to resort to balloons as its quicker to set up.

You don't have anyone who can source you some flowers at wholesale prices, I guess? Peonies would be gorgeous, I agree - but £££. You need a flower expert (i.e. not me!) to suggest lower cost alternatives. I am a cheap date when it comes to flowers - my favourites are those big daisy-like white crysanthamums (sp?) - SIL used to be a florist, and she used several acres of daisies to decorate the church and hall for our wedding.

Yes, the order arrived as promised, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to get it ordered and confirmed. They are not easy to do business with from outside the US. However, the make-your-own dragons look absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't find those anywhere else, so worth the hassle and DH having to cram all his stuff into about 1/3 of a suitcase to get it all home.

No access to wholesale. Although mil has a cash n carry card for this place that does ribbon etc. hmmm wonder if they do flowers. Tesco had bunches of pale peonies and ive toyed with ransacking supermarkets a couple of days before.

Well done dh for cramming it all home for you. Although i bet a trip to the states without kids was no hardship for him

He's going back again next week

I am sure an arrangement with a friendly florist to just take a couple of boxes of flowers with no work for them should be cheaper than supermarket flowers - worth a conversation or two, anyway.

Quick, lets all get an order together for him to bring back

I can just imagine the reaction, Blathers . He has managed to establish a pattern of bringing DD back "pretty dresses" when he goes to the US - with 2 trips in 3 weeks, he has just tried to persuade her of the existence of the concept of "enough" pretty dresses... Good Luck on that one, DH

I'm not sure I can be convinced of the concept of "enough" pretty dresses and I am considerably older than your DD!

any good to you, DrsW?

Oh thanks stealth. I went to chat to a florist and she was pretty unhelpful. I asked what flowers are a blush colour rather than baby pink and she pretty much shrugged at me.

I'll do a practice run and work out how many stems i'd need.And im def moving in about three weeks! eek.