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

[stealthsquiggle]

We appear to have filled another thread

Thank you, I really appreciate it. Reading your posts is like reading a cheat sheet on how to organise a Gruffalo party.

I love those toadstools. They are described as festive so I might get quite a lot of use out of them which is a bonus. I've already planned a trip to collect fir cones to use at the party as well as Christmas.

Reading your last post made me smile, as I've just read an old post where you said if you see another Gruffalo again it will be too soon (I think the mouses tail had just broken and snake wasn't to scale). You've clearly forgotten the pain

Parties are like childbirth - by the time of the next one you have forgotten the pain and only remember the good stuff.

I am still working on DGoddaughter to be the recipient of an exact copy of DD's Gruffalo party.

In the meantime I am almost done stuffing second dragon tail, and have made 1.5 pairs of wings.

Unfortunately I have also remembered the cuddly dragon kit......

Ah yes but i patched it well check out my profile!

Stealth i feel your pain, ive cut out 50 sun emblems need to make a flynn rider bag and i'm making blocks for this christening cake.

How big does your Flynn Rider bag need to be? In the process of clearing out the glory hole so that the electrician can get at the rat-chewed wires (oh, the glamour of country living , I found a black leather handbag which would make a good (but on the small side) Flynn Rider bag.

Wings have been approved (and coveted) by DS, but other than that the only upside of today was finding various party stuff (and some velcro) in the course of tidying.

That cake is amazing TDW46.

Stealth it needs to be big enough for 22 packets of sweets!

22 packs of haribo? I could try that tomorrow and take a picture - if you want it, it's yours.

Interesting discovery of the day - if you take haribo out of the tub to try them for size in a Flynn Rider bag, they won't fit back in. I may have to eat some gummy bears. The sacrifices we make.

I cant sleep. I have rapunzel party angst so ive come here to write a to do list so you can spur me on. Im hoping getting it written down will let my mind switch off. So here i go, splurdging my thoughts:

*Book a hairdresser, but dd's godmother is a hairdresser. Would she like to be asked, or is it too much considering her kids are coming?

• print the invites if my dad hurries up and sorts them out. *make mini braids for invites
• stick suns on purple lunchboxes, fruitshoot style bottles and bunting
• get fil to print flynn rider wanted posters, pin nose on game and noses. Push my luck and ask whether he can stretch to a lifesize rapunzel and or flynn
• make chameleon blower components and bag up for crafting
• download tangled soundtrack
• order bags for party bag gifts
• consider labels for craft activity tables and make them! *order lanterns to release
• buy some pipe and make a tower cake (shiiiiiit it's gonna be tricky)
• buy sweets/possibly mini tiaras for the pass the flynn rider bag (cheers stealth)
• buy 5 more lunch boxes as forgot that the babies will all be well weaned by party time and will prob want a box at their first proper party.
• work put some lind of timetable of events and poo pants at enormity of it all.

Sob.

Nope. Still not sleepy.

Confession of the day - I forgot to post the bag this morning. It's all packed and addressed but in the panic of remembering that DS has to be in 15 minutes early on Tuesdays I forgot it.

It will go tomorrow, I promise.

I have packed party bags, made 26 miniature dragons as cake toppers for school (I made the mistake of asking DD what sort of cakes she wanted to take in, expecting 'chocolate', and she happily said "ones with little dragons on"), and roughly made a dragon's head out of rice krispie treats and coated it in white chocolate.

Sleep now. FWIW, I think you should ask DD's godmother if she knows anyone, which gives her a chance to say she'll do it herself.

Right, posted a bag this morning and I definitely didn't have to make a return trip after dropping off DC because that would mean that I forgot it the first time - it's travelling 2nd Class though, so don't hold your breath.

dragon cake toppers for your entertainment (DH says they look like Scotty dogs )

Oh my, they are very very cute! Not dog like at all.

Soooo, after stressing myself stupid and finally getting to sleep at 12.15, dd2 woke at 3.50 for a feed. Brilliant i thought, she's getting later and later waking up. So i'm dozing whilst feeding and hear dd1 fall out of bed. She comes in crying which then rouses baby, baby cries which then makes dd1 realise baby is in bed with mummy. She starts tantruming that shes getting in too and so dd2 is howling the house down. So we've all been up since then as neither child settled down.

On a positive note the hairdressing godmother text to say she's sold her salon (random and out of the blue?!) and has gone mobile. Great i say, do you wanna birthday party gig? Yippeeeee. One job done.

Oh and stealth no prob about the bag, its the least of my worries- see the list ha ha.

I know the bag is not up there on the list, DW - but I also know that things which were "not urgent" are now the ones giving me nightmares. Just to add to my mix, DD's bestest friend has both birthday and party on Friday, so I need to sort out her present as well (pencil case this year, she probably has enough of my bags by now..)

Thats made me laugh cos i have visions of some child feeling your present "another bag".

LOL - the bags are always only containers, there is always something in them - I don't know many small children who would be impressed with just the bag.

How you getting on stealth? When is the actual party?

My dad has finished the invites, not ideal but they'll do. Considering he's in the print he's dragged his bloody feet and i have to print them myself!! Anyway ive stuck suns on bunting, pascal costume done, flowers for hair ordered now that hairdresser secured. And ive made 20 tiny plaits to put through the tower window on the invites. Tomorrow i'm finishing the christening cake then making the bits for the pascal blowers.

And my lovely friend told me she'd got dd the tiny tangled figurines so i've asked if she could engineer it so she has them a few days before so i can use them on the cake. Then she asked if she could buy her the rapunzel costume for the party. So so kind, dd1 will be thrilled.

My only worry is that after the gruffalo party we had mostly gruffalo presents! Including a few copies of the book?!! Surely people would think "she must have the book if she likes it enough to have a party around it".

Stealth talk to me about rice crispie treats i'm thinking of making the tower top from some, stuck on some pipe, driven into a cake mound and iced!

LOL at copies of the book. DD had remarkably few cooking sets last year. This year, OTOH, she has had 1 cuddly dragon (from me), 1 Playmobil one (from DS), 1 pair of dragon pyjamas (from me & DH) and 1 dragon watch (from my parents) so we shall see how much dragon stuff the party brings.

Birthday was today. Party is Sunday, but I am not working on it tonight, having got not much sleep last night, or I will mess things up and fall asleep on the motorway tomorrow.

Rice krispie treats - remind me tomorrow as it's too long an answer to type on my phone!

Good luck for the party tomorrow Stealth. I expect you to come back and report on all that happened tomorrow night.

I've started party planning for DD's 'Elephants and Rainbows' party in earnest now. I need something to distract me! Stealth and DW, I will DM...

So, so far I'm thinking...

DD will be 3 and has asked for bouncy castles and a cake with an Elephant on. Bouncy castles are also booked and will probably have Jungle animals on. I don't really want to do Jungle as a theme again as I did that when DS had a Julia Donaldson "Monkey Puzzle" themed party so I was going to do Rainbows instead as the castles are brightly coloured.

Hall is booked. When I had a look round they were in the middle of giving it all a fresh coat of white paint which should look lovely with the rainbow colours. I've got the hall from 1pm till whenever I'm finished. I was thinking of doing the party from 2 until 4 and thereby avoid having to do too much in the way of food - just snacks really.

I which case do I need a table and plates/cups? I was thinking I'd get plain white tablecloths and cheap IKEA cups, plates and bowls that I could use over and over again (and send to DW for her party too) but do I need to.

There will be cake obviously - one of the layered rainbow ones with different coloured sponges all layered up with white frosting with the peg dolly on the top and sugar paste elephants marching around the bottom edge holding trunks and tails. I've found some I like on [[http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160877114029#ht_594wt_701 ebay] although they look easy enough to make myself. I was thinking I could do platters of rainbow fruit too, some bowls of Skittles and then maybe some big Costco pizzas and sausage rolls to bulk it out a little.

For decorations, I was thinking maybe just rainbow bunting and/or paper chains? Maybe some balloons to kick around or maybe a helium balloon tided to the back of each chair if I do do a table.

I'm not sure I'll need much in the way of party games/activities with 2 bouncy castles to keep them amused but I did consider some colouring as the pots of crayons would be very rainbow-y, a pass the parcel and maybe some cardboard crowns and some stick on gems so the children can make some party hats. Do you think it's necessary? The last party we went to where they had bouncy castles had nothing else at all and none of the children got bored.

For party bags I'm thinking plain white paper bags with the childrens names printed out in a rainbow-y font and stuck on. Not sure what to fill them with though. There will be a pretty even mix of 3 year olds and 5 year olds. Got to have a bag of Rainbow Drops I think, maybe a lolly? then a rainbow slinky spring thing? a rainbow crayon? Maybe I can find a little drawing pad to go with the crayon. Is that rubbish?

Apologies for the mega post

I have been firmly sent to bed, so am not really here, but one thought on your plans - even if it is only snacky tea, I would still be inclined to have them sitting at table - otherwise the food will go everywhere.

I'm doing 2-4 for rapunzel and i'm diubg lunchboxes. But i'm considering setting a table but allowing them to wander iff and puck from their box if they want to. You've got a lot if ideas that i want to do for dd2's first.

Decorations i've seen great balloon garlands on pinterest in rainbow colours. Or like you say balloons on chair backs in fact that'd be good as you could graduate the length of string to arc it over the table. Rainbow bunting is dirt cheap on ebay too.

Because mine is for babies but prob mostly dd1's friends i'm gonna do maybe fingerpainting, colouring and playdoh.

Partybags i may just do a cellophane bag of sweets in rainbow layers with gold coins at the bottom esp as they all in the shops for xmas.

Def doing the same cake but i think i'll have to do sugarpaste not frosting as how do you get it white enough? And i do love the modelling bits on a cake. I'm thinking of making a rainbow out of gumpaste or fimo to stick in the cake and arch over my dolly.

Dd i'm going to make a rainbow tutu and stitch a rainbow 1 onto a long sleeved vest. I'm thinking peg dolly might like a matching outfit. I might even tutu the cake.

I made dd1 a lovely felt raindrop mobile once so i'm considering doing rainbow versions as party favours instead or the sweets or giving a kids rainbow brolly.

Glad your mind is running riot like mine! Stop it though because i keep fetting seduced into rainbow research and its six weeks til rapunzel. The invites are all finalises but i dont think the card ive got will be strong enough once saturated in ink!!

Good luck tomorrow stealth. I'm at the worlds longest christening (i'm the stand in proxy for the godmother) so i'll be loggin in at night for an update!

OK, so I will do a table if only to keep the mess in one place. Just going to get a plain white table cloth I think as the coloured plates and cups will look really good on white I think. I've got a white cake stand for the cake too.

I think white frosting will be white enough. The ones I've seen online are just frosted and it looks good. I'm going to need gel food colouring for the layers to make it bright enough aren't I?

Had considered playdoh for an activity but forgot about it when I was typing out my mega post yesterday. Not sure mine aren't a bit big for playdoh to be exciting at parties now...

Love the sweety bags with the gold coin at the bottom idea (and white, marshmallow clouds possibly?) but I did cellophane cones for DD's last party and I've already ordered the rainbow crayons. I guess I could put them on the colouring table but it seems too soon to do sweets again.

I adore the rainbow brolly idea but the ones I've found on Ebay are £3.95 each plus postage and I'm looking at almost 20 kids. I can't spend the best part of £80 on party brollies!!

I also adore the rainbow tutu idea. I have a feeling we're going to wind each other into a frenzy with this one DW

I like the idea of white tablecloths to set off rainbow plates, etc.

We all survived, and everyone had a good time and the boys didn't riot this year. I have no photos of my own, but my father hopefully has 100's, so I shall snaffle them tomorrow and post a selection.

Thank you for all your help and inspiration.

Glad it went well Stealth. Did everyone love the bags?

What have you got left to do DW?