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

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We appear to have filled another thread

Crikey! Tomorrow Serendipity?

What have you got sorted so far? Any theme?

I must admit, 12 year olds not my forte. We could really do with Shirley for this one. 5 hours is a long time to fill too.

M&S have some beautiful and tasty cakes that you can pick up off the shelf.

Would they like a movie afternoon? You could rent a couple of suitable movies and then get in loads of popcorn, sweets and pop, maybe nachos, hotdogs and pizza too for a more filling meal and then give them the run of the lounge to watch them?

Party games...erm...what about the one where you have the name of someone stuck to your forehead so everyone else but you can see it and then have to work out who you are by asking yes/no questions? You could either do it yourself with post it pads or I think you can buy a set from somewhere like Toys R Us. Twister also a good idea

If they like board games you could buy a range of games for them to play. You could theme the food to match so maybe make a monopoly board out of sandwiches. Make loads of different fillings and then make the top layer a little shorter than the bottom so that you get a flash of the filling colour at the top and then arrange them in a square to make a board?

Apologies, my eldest is 5 so I'm a little out of my depth here.

Love the spotty tie biscuit idea LittleFriend

If you got a little circle cutter you could do all sorts for food. Maybe sandwiches a bit like above with circles cut in the top layer to show the colour of the filling through or how about little pizzas with ham, red.yellow/green peppers, tomatoes etc all cut into circles and dotted on top? Maybe get some juice in cartons and make spotty wrappers for them? If you're feeling brave you could maybe have some bright coloured lollypops?

Great ideas for the food Blathers. I have an image in my head of bright spotty party food but I wasn't sure how I'd do it.

Also, I had a look at Karas Party ideas website and one of the spotty clown ones is just what I wanted. They have jars of sweets with spotty ribbon / lids, clown pops and spotty cakes. Looks amazing. Oh, and saw one with fruit kebabs. Not Mr Tumble in the slightest but I want them too :)

I love Karas Party Ideas :) I'd pinch away, she has some lovely ideas.

Fruit kebabs go I think. Not everything on the program is spotty so your party food doesn't need to be either. Do do need to learn the signs for all the food though

Haha that's true Blathers, my dp and dd know quite a bit (too much mr tumble for them) so I'll get them to teach me.

I'm going to google some cake ideas today. I have proper mr tumble cake being made but would quite like to try one myself. I'll need a super simple recipe though then I have two weekends to practise :)

Blather - Thanks for your help, I thought I was having a one-way conversation with myself on MN for the past few days!!!! I have all the party food sorted plus cake as I'm quite a handy baker, so thats no problem. Anyway the sun is shining here so all should be well.

LittleFriend - you could always make a simple jam sponge, cover it in Yellow roll out icing and then cover it in dots?

Sorry you didn't get much help Serendipity. Holidays are always slower as everyone is off amusing their children and not posting so much. I hope t goes well.

Sorry serendipity i was away drooling over crap on pinterest and forgot to check threads im on. I hope it all went ok.

Littlefriend you are doing an amazing job on this mr tumble party. You'll have to stick around on this thread to help others with ideas. But you have to talk crap to stealth blathers and i until party peeps stumble along.

Blathers. I'm def doing rainbow for dd's 1st birthday so no pressure but all eyes on you now mate so i can steal ideas. Happy to share my thoughts though. Oh and i didnt do the frozen cake. After i dropped the fruit cake on my iced board and squidged it i chickened out of two tiers. So now i have a ready made sponge still waiting in the freezer.

Oh lord, I'd better get this right then.

I've decided that I'm going to not do paper plates etc but instead get plastic ones from IKEA. They come in a range of rainbow colours, are easier for little ones to use/carry, are reusable and cost 90p for 6 plates/bowls/cups which is way less than paper ones and I can use them again and again. I think we're going to have about 18 kids.

I'm going to get some fabric and make a load of rainbow bunting to match and probably a load of balloons too.

Cake will be rainbow layers to make a tall cake, frosted in white with either grey or colours elephants marching around the edge and a big 3 on the top. I've got a white cake stand to put it on and might even get a rainbow/red hat box to stand that on for extra height.

Food will just be snacks as I can only have the hall between mealtimes but I'm thinking bowls of rainbow fruits and some chocolate animal biscuits to go with the jungle themed inflatables. Not sure what else to do food-wise. I thought I'd just put the food on cheap, silver platters which I can bin afterwards. I'm thinking I'll decorate the table with a white tablecloth and some extra rainbow bunting. I might see if I can get rainbow napkins too.

I'm going to do a pass the parcel, potentially with each layer a different rainbow shade and put ??? in each player and an elephant-y type present in the middle.

I'll get the Jungle book/Tarzan soundtracks for music and we should be good to go.

Party bags will be white paper bags with elephants to match the cake. No idea what to put in them yet though. I might make some of those elephant blow outs I linked to earlier.

Then I'll stick the plates/bowls/cups/bunting in a box and send it up to you DW

Thanks DoctorsWife, I'm actually feeling worried about the party. I think about it far too much and am constantly googling ideas. Would love to stick around on this thread though, I have lots to learn!!

Blathers your party sounds fab, when is this going to be? I've googled rainbow birthday cakes too and I love them. Had a peak at the photos of everyones cakes, their amazing. I really must learn how to bake.

I have some ideas though for party bag fillers / prizes for your party. I've just looked on ebay and if you google rainbow party bag fillers their are lots of ideas. Rainbow slinky, swirly lollypops and pencils. Oh, and rainbow drops :)

See you're fitting right in already - rainbow drops, genius idea! DD would love the pencils too. Maybe I could find some of those with the multiple colours in one pencil so you write in a rainbow?

The party isn't until December In my defence, it will be nigh on impossible to get anything not Christmas related anywhere but online if I don't get it soon and all the halls will be booked up with Christmas parties so I have to advance plan. DD has 8 days between her birthday and Christmas and I am determined that she will never hate that as much as some friends I know. The amount of "shit birthday" and "poor kid" comments I got when I was expecting was phenomenal

I love these!

These are the sorts of pencils I was thinking of but I'm liking the crayons even more I think

Love those crayons too, def put them on your list :) Did you see the "rainbow belts" fizzy sweets too? They might be good.

December isn't too far away really (I say that as someone who has a few christmas presents for my daughters stashed away). I wouldn't worry about your daughter hating her birthday anyway, with these parties you throw for her she will have lovely memories of her birthdays. I think people will always make comments, my dd2's due date was September 11th and I got some horrible comments about it like there was anything I could do about it by that point.

Just a short update on party for 12 year old girls yesterday! Highly successful day aided by a day of lovely sunshine, I kept it simple, some traditional party games in the back garden, and plenty of home cooking for later! I kept the kitchen table stocked up with goodies and popcorn and drinks. had the ipod on speaker, and let them feed themselves during the afternoon as they wanted! A lot of the time they just wanted to chat and goof around, and were simply happy to be together as a group after a very long summer break.

The unlikely hit of the day was a game of "Guess who's in the sleeping bag" - all kids were asked to bring a sleeping bag, 1 person is "on" all other kids then swap sleeping bags and you must guess whose in each bag by way of a series of limited questons etc, you get the picture. Hilarious! A great party and made me think that certainly for this age group a little less planning is required and just let things flow and evolve!
Thanks in particular to Blatherskite!

That sounds like a really nice girls gathering serendipity. I think I'd like that for my own birthday!!

Blathers yes indeed you can send me your box!

I was going to do white tablecloth with paper plates going up the table in rainbow colours. Your idea tip is good, I have those plates! I'm going to decorate dd's high chair with ribbon. Rainbow cake with white icing but I want one of these for the top Doll

Crayons I'm gonna melt my own like this Crayon

I saw some little notebooks with rainbow coloured paper inside. And I may do sweets like smarties/skittles in a rainbow with gold coins at the bottom. Dd1 wants to make a rainbow so I may do that as crafting, get some paint pads and make a big hand/footprint rainbow with all the babies.

And no apologies are allowed on this thread for early plans. I have six months til dd2's 1st birthday and I'm well focused. (I'm thinking of putting cloud babies on a lot to encourage her for the rainbow theme). But first I have to sort dd1's rapunzel party. I'm gonna use the stuff for that to decorate her bedroom as she's asked for a rapunzel bedroom for months now.

Ikea tip!! Autocorrect.

Fizzy belts look good. Skittles would work well too but I don't want to put in too many sweets for 3 year olds - not after I've fed them chocolate biscuits and food colouring heavy cake!

I hope the parties will help DD love her birthday. I miscarried 3 months before I fell pregnant with her and was just so pleased to be pregnant - even when my original due date was 25th December! At my scan they moved it to the 27th and then she was 10 days early.

You are more than welcome Serendipity. So glad the party went well. I love the sound of the sleeping bag game!

I adore that Rainbow dolly too. My Sister is really good with Fimo and made a me and DH to go on top of our wedding cake. I'm wondering if I could talk her into attempting a DD??

Glad your dd's party went well serendipity, it sounds fun.

I keep worrying that I'm not going to have enough kids at this party, I spent the first few weeks thinking I had too many and for some reason now I feel like it's not enough. I've had a couple of no's and it's sent me in to a panic.

I had an idea of what I want to make and it will also fit in with both your rainbow themes, rainbow jelly :) My party is from 2 - 4 so do you think I'll be fine with things like sandwiches, sausage rolls, mini sausages, fruit, crisps, cookies and jelly? I won't need any "proper" food, will I?

Rainbow jellies could be fun.

I'm imagining them made in clear, disposable wine glasses so that you can see all of the colours...

Back. Marking my place to come back later and catch up. Full steam ahead on dragon party is next - must book a hall.

I love the rainbow crayons and the doll - I am sure your Fimo-talented DSis could manage that, Blathers. Rainbow crayons could also be combined with white paper tablecloths to good effect, but not with DC young enough to decide to eat the crayons, I guess.

DrsW - DD2's party sounds lovely. You had every right to get a bit very emotional after everything that you have all been through. Did your DM ever recognise how close she came to losing you, I wonder?

Today I have been wading through email. Tonight I will get through the last of the holiday washing mountain and then wash the dragon fabric, I think. I then need to make some semi sensible decisions about how many of your great ideas I can realistically undertake for dragon party - particularly as it all has to be done without DD knowing, as she has already made clear that she wants the details of her dragon party to be a surprise . Plus I need to negotiate party dates with the mother of one of DD's best friends, whose birthday is the day after DD's, without said mother thinking that I am complete loon for thinking about parties so early (it's only 6 weeks away, which is nothing in party-fanatic land, but I know will be way too soon in her opinion..).

I am now obsessed with the Doll idea. Have roped in Sis to help. How are you making yours DW? Any suggestions anyone?

Where is everyone?