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

[stealthsquiggle]

We appear to have filled another thread

Is anyone still around? I've begun planning DD's party and need some ideas...

I've put out the bat call so hopefully someone will be around soon...

DD is going to be 3 in December. She's asked to have a bouncy castle.

I think I've found a hall (local community centre is only going to charge me £35 for a whole afternoon!) which is big enough and allows castles indoors.

I also have a friend who hires bouncy castles out who has said he's happy to let me have a castle and an inflatable slide which will fit, just waiting to find out price now.

The only problem now is theme. I realise anyone dropping past this thread will think I'm crazy but I'm hoping Stealth and DW will understand. The slide is painted with underwater characters and the castle can either be underwater, jungle or disco themed. I'll probably go for underwater so they match but...I'm not sure DD would be all that bothered by having an underwater themed birthday party. She's much more into Dragons at the moment and I was thinking of going with a princesses/princes/dragons type theme and pinching all my ideas from Stealth Do you think it'll matter?

I'd be daft going anywhere else for the bouncy castle as it would no doubt cost more and after the guy I hired for DD's 1st birthday party never turned up, I'd rather go with someone I know.

So - do I change the theme to fit the castles or go with the dragons and hope no-one notices that the castles don't 'fit'. Is anyone but me likely to even notice anyway? :)

Im here. Im here.right let me just re-read all that..

Ok ive read it again.

Ok, no-one else is going to notice the theme of the bouncy castle. Is it paramount that she has dragons. Is she really into them or are you making it fit princesses? Is she really into anything or just hoing with the 'best fit'. If its absolutely dragons etc then go with it but go all out and no-one will think twice about the castle.

Now, if castles/dragons princesses arent vital. Can you engineer a theme around the underwater castle. My dd would live a mermaid theme if i suggested it and ive seen some great stuff around mermaids on pinterest. Have you done pirates before or just attended them cos you could always do trusty pirates/princesses.

Or just an under the sea general theme, sunken treasure, mermaids, pirates, fish.

If its deffo dragons 'poach with pride' from stealth. Xx

Excuse the spellings etc, on my phone with dd1 kicking me for her tea and dd2 teething.

Dragons aren't vital but they are the things that she is most into at the moment. She has a teeny red one that she sleeps with and I must have read Zog every night for the past fortnight. I only added Princesses/Princes as it made potential dress up easier.

But - she's 2.5, it could all be something different by December.

Mermaids could work too. We borrow The Little Mermaid to watch over the holidays so I'll just put it on every other day until she gets it She loves Finding Nemo too.

I've never done pirates myself, just dressed DS up as one. Pirate would give me a good excuse to get one of those reversible Pirate Princess dresses like Stealth's DD has too

I was thinking of just doing maybe 1 craft activity and the food to go along with the bouncy castles. No point going over the top when all they're going to want to do is bounce for a couple of hours. They had castles and a little disco at a party we went to a while ago and they had to all but drag the kids off the castles to play musical statues! Party is likely to be 1.30 until 3.30 too because of the times I can have the hall so I'm not going to need to do much more than snacks either, no replacement meals.

Bat Call received. Up to my ears in work right now - back later. Underwater theme - it's a well known fact that underwater creatures and dragons are friends - and they don't mind the odd pirate (no knights though - they go rusty underwater, much to the amusement of the dragons)

Amongst other things, I think mini-Blathers needs a dragon-related reading list

Her current favourite toy is a cuddle Cthulhu! Even we would struggle to theme a toddler party round that!

First up for the reading list - this - we don't actually have it but it is on pre-order for when the paperback comes out (we have some of her other books)

Also this one and this one

I will be back to talk parties once I have finished this webcast I am supposed to be paying attention to..

(we do have the last 2 books - it is just the first one we are waiting for)

I suspect this might be more for DS than DD for the moment

All added to DD's wish list

OK. Work done (sort of - one lot done and was on the phone for so long the other lot gave up )

When I am done brainwashing Blathers' DD into continuing her dragon obsession, I will acknowledge that most of the cool dragon ideas are probably not 3yo friendly - so maybe pirates or mermaids (or both) might be easier for this year, and save the dragons for another time?

I agree, unless you have lots of older DC and helpers, 1 simple craft activity and pass the parcel in some form are about as much as you will get 3yos to focus on other than bouncing. And face painting, maybe? Focus on the decor (undersea could be fun) for the theming rather than the games/crafts.

In other news, DH seemed reasonably positive about the facepainting course (I am off to talk to DD about it now) and I have sewn wings onto 12 Easter dinosaurs dragons and pinned 12 more - the last 12 are being awkward about the colour of their wings - I have matched wings to bellies for the others, but the last 12 have dusty pink bellies which makes it hard to find felt to match, plus I am not sure I want them to have pink wings just in case the boys decide they are too girly (really don't want to get into gender specific bags). I have also spent far too much on some dragon party fabric that I just could not resist - it hasn't arrived yet but I will show you a photo when it does.

If you did it as 'nautical' you can have it all, pirates, mermaids, seamonsters aka dragons. There is another benefit to a 'sea' theme its soooo not christmassy you'll put pay to the christmas impeding on her birthday gubbins too.

Stealth - rewind. Fill me in on the dragon party progress slowly....

Good point DW. I shall have a think about it tonight while I'm out with DH celebrating our anniversary :)

Ok after success of dd's princess and knights party at the castle I need to start planning ds1s party in dec and ds2s party in nov.
Ds1 (will be 6) wants a mario kart party so was thinking of hiring goats at local sports centre so need ideas to turn it into a mario party
Ds2 is going to be 2 and going to
Have a hungry caterpillar party, thought I would do the food as all the food that the caterpillar eats or variations of it do need ideas for that and games etc.

Jojane are you sure 6 yr olds want goats

Aahh GOKARTS !!!!! Not sure goats would go down well with the parents!!

LOL at the goats.

Apart from a cake (there was a fab one on another thread done by StateofConfusion - here) and silly mushrooms and stuff for food I am struggling a bit for Mario.

Hungry Caterpillar, OTOH, I have been thinking about because I am thinking of blackmailing friend and mother of my DGodDaughter into doing either that or Gruffalo for DGoddaughter's 2nd Birthday. Last time I went into Hobbycraft they had some fabulous hungry caterpillar fabrics.

You could get pompoms and some cord and make caterpillars. Or make butterflies? Food clearly has to be the stuff that the caterpillar ate, with appropriate labels. You could play caterpillar racing with sleeping bags - and pin the caterpillar on the leaf. Decor would be lots of huge green leaves.

Blathers I had forgotten about the Christmas interference issues. Blue and Green colourscheme and lots of mermaids would definitely help fend that off, but it also means that all the stuff has to be sourced soon before all you can get is Christmas stuff (I have that problem with DS, and his is at the beginning of November, FGS).

DrsW - that's the problem with Blathers flouncing - I have half conversations with her on Twitter and then confuse you by continuing them on here . TBH there hasn't been a lot of progress since DH brought all the stuff home from the US - apart from starting on the dinosaur-to-dragon conversion. I am starting to panic as we are about to go on holiday, and then when we get back it will be September, and by the time I have got the DC back to school I will have less than a month to sort everything. I haven't booked a hall yet, or made the cuddly dragons, or thought about invitations, or cakes, or anything, really!

The facepainting course is unrelated as it is after DD's birthday, but it is a 4 day course running during half term, with a note to say you need to bring your own victim model. I will call tomorrow and see if there are any places left.

Where's the face painting course? You sound busy as ever on the sewing machine. I still haven't managed that cot set. I think I'll send it to you!

Jojane I can't think for mariocart (I'll do some thinking tonight when boob feeding though)

Hungry caterpillar, I'm watching with interest because I was considering it for my dd2's first birthday. I've seen invites written on leaves and sent with pompon caterpillars in jars. Balloons green/red strung up like the hungry caterpillar and food laid out in muffin tins with what the caterpillar ate through, sandwiches rolled up like pinwheel on sticks instead of the lollipop though.

Blathers didn't you say you'd been to a cracking caterpillar party? (happy anniversary xx)

You could make a fantastic caterpillar ceiling decoration from these with LED tealights in

face painting course is at the local (sort of - it's about 20 miles) College of Further Education.

Sewing - not all that much, really - I have been doing a few bags for DD to take to parties, and a bag for DD because I felt bad about telling her Cath Kidston bags were a waste of money "because we could make those at home" and then never getting round to it - and I made her a dress at the weekend to prove to myself that I could - I just need to finish the buttonholes. DS is feeling a bit deprived, but since his dragon school bag is still going strong he doesn't need anything else (not that DD does, but she loves bags). I am still kidding myself that I will get around to making myself the shoulder bag I have fabric hoarded for before we go on holiday.

Hadn't you better get the cot set done before DD2 grows out of the cot ?

Mariocart party - some good ideas here www.paisleypetalevents.com/2011/05/05/mario-kartvintage-racecar-party/

We'll end up with about half and half 3yos and 5yos I think as most of DD's friends are the little brothers and sisters of the children we know from the antenatal class I went to when pregnant with DS. DD starts pre-school in September though so she might have made a few more by the party. I'm hoping parents will stay too so there should be lots of help but probably still easiest to stick to just 1 craft activity. The hard part is going to be restraining myself to just 1 :)

You'd think and underwater theme would kill the Christmas interference but we had a Teddy Bears picnic last year and someone still wanted to come with their kids dressed as Santa and a Snowman!

I can definitely help with a Very Hungry Caterpillar party! I worked at one last month doing their crafts and face painting and I'm pretty sure I've seen 90% of what she did online so I should be able to get pics. I'l have a google. Tablecloths/plates/cups etc all really easy to buy. She had a large caterpillar at one end of the room made from red and green paper lanterns and smaller ones around the room made from balloons. There were classic caterpillar foods (oranges, apples, strawberries, plums etc) doted along the tables in Kilner jars with a tag on reading "On xxxday the Caterpillar ate through xxxxx" and then the party food was labelled with a bit of artistic licence so "on saturday, the caterpillar ate some cheese sandwiches". The cake was a huge caterpillar made out of red and green iced cupcakes. She had some lovely signs done to say X's party this way but they looked professionally done so I'm sure they must be available online somewhere and then of course, she had me I did some Baker Ross colour in butterfly things with the children (which I can't seem to see on there right now) and some caterpillars made out of squidged up tissue paper (wouldn't have been my first choice but I was given the materials and had to work with them), I did butterflies and caterpillar face painting - caterpillars were just blobs over the cheeks and nose which were easy on wriggly little ones and looked really good too, and then we did songs like "There's a worm at the bottom of the garden"

Karting for a Mariokart parting sounds fab and a lot better than goating Maybe pinch the mushroom cake out of the 50 easy party cakes book that Stealth and DW both have I believe but make it red and white and add a mario figure? Golden chocolate coins on the tables? Maybe then swing the theme to Italian for Mario and Luigi and get some red and white checked tables cloths and serve pizzas? Pizzas are always popular.

You'll be on your face painting course before I manage to get one done Stealth! I really must decide which one I'm going to do and get it booked