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

[stealthsquiggle]

We appear to have filled another thread

just over 3 weeks to mine

scottishplayer - I think they are mostly done with a thin layer of fondant, and then royal icing, but actually, inspite of the large collection, I am not into very elaborately decorated cookies/biscuits. My DC get number biscuits at their parties, quite simply decorated with royal icing and sprinkles. I also have a set of these which I haven't had a chance to play with yet, but am planning on just flooding the letter imprint with royal icing.

FWIW, I don't generally bother with themed tableware - it is £££ for something which gets thrown away and I think the same money spent on decorations has more impact, with cheap plates and cups from costco instead.

Letter cutters added to wishlist. I might as well just copy your whole list stealth, I'm guessing they're probably fairly similar by now.

And only a week between our birthdays too!

I tell you what, I'll buy the Gingerdead cutter and you do the same - we can pretend we bought each other a birthday present

I tend to leave our cookies to the kids decorating talents so they just end up smeared in icing and covered in sprinkles. I have done some with those icing tubes too but only rarely. I'd agree with stealth that the ones you linked to are most probably thin fondant - cut with the same cutter to get the right shape and then finished with piped icing.

If no-one gets it for me Blathers, then you are on! Right now I need it on there to balance out the more expensive things like pasta extruder for KitchenAid and a compressor/airbrush kit

See, I even have a Kitchen Aid! Only a Classic though which means I can't buy so many gadgets for it

ours is a low-end commercial one, so some of the gadgets for the trendy coloured ones don't fit, but the bolt-ons like pasta machines and the like fit pretty much all KA's, I think.

I've just had a look and it seems I can buy more gadgets for my Classic than I thought!

This is not going to end well :)

I'm desperate for a Food processor right now though. I made shortbread at the weekend and it would have been so much easier with a Magimix!

Ok, gingerdead cookie cutters and letter cutters added to my wishlist too.

I've only used royal icing once and it was a disaster. I'm thinking those gingerdead cookies would work at a pirate party, so would you do the skeleton in royal icing? Any tips on making/using royal icing and doing them neatly? I'm a bit of a novice at these things.

Completely agree on the themed tableware StealthSquiggle - as well as being expensive lots of it is just naff too! However, I found a pirate range that I liked then found the plates/cups lots cheaper on ebay. Most of my shopping list is for decorations/games props etc.

Thanks again for all th tips and suggestions. It's made planning DS's party so much easier!

I think the gingerdead man, like the letters, should be fairly easy to ice - I would just make up royal icing (I buy the purple royal icing sugar, although I really shouldn't given that we currently have a glut of eggs) fairly runny (but still beat it lots or it won't set hard) and "flood" the skeleton shape which should be indented into the biscuit with white icing.

..then again I don't have one yet so that is purely theoretical.

OR just buy the white icing in tubes from the supermarket. Won't be quite as neat but tonnes easier.

Ok thanks. I've found a useful tutorial online re: all things royal icing so I think I'll do a few practice runs. It'll give me another opportunity to justify the fairly recent purchase of a kenwood prospero and eat cookies

Gah! I've got less than a week until the Octonauts party and the outfits are still as Mum left them!

Bloody poorly kids interfering with my costume making

What is left to be done, Blathers?

I am about to upload piccies of latest bag, which was a lot bit of a scramble before dumping DD on my parents for them to take her to party on Saturday.

Most of it

Oh dear

Have you done badges yet? cutting out felt shapes can be done in small chunks IME. As for the rest of it, it needs to be distilled down to "essence of Octonaut" and your inner perfectionist needs to back off for a while, I suspect. Are the DC getting better now?

Car bag added to set - I was really pleased with it, but in a moment of madness I decided that next weekend's bag (bugs and butterflies themed) is going to be "mixed media" cos I have embroidered grass on bags before and it takes for bloody ever and I don't have enough embroidery silk left so I was painting grass on bits on canvas last night

Right, I did Barnacles zip in paint before we left for swimming and now we're back I'm going to get on with DD's outfit. DS's is probably the more important one but he's not here to measure on.

So Tweak -
Done -
dyed baby grow green (badly but well enough for this I think),
Bought ears and tail,
Made felt carrot,
Found toy spanner.

Need to do -
Sew collar to baby grow
Sew boot covers (this is the job I'm scared of. Mum cut out the foot bit but I need to make felt copies to sew in to support the fabric and make the leg bit. I'm not a confident sewer so I'm nervous of stuffing it up)
Make a belt and add loops/velcro for carrot and spanner.

If I have time -
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots and to cover "Mummy's cheeky Monkey" logo on babygrow.
Create blue headband for ears.
Add darts to collar.

When DS is around - Captain Barnacles
Done -
Sewn collar to pyjama top
Added zip with fabric paint
Make boot covers - Just need to sew them on at the right height on PJ legs now
Made compass holder in yellow felt

Need to do -
Make belt and add compass holder
Sew on boots
Make hat

If I have time -
Add darts to collar and yellow stripes to belt
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots

Easy right

it looks like a long list, but not entirely un-doable.

Boot covers - the leg bit is fairly easy - and you could use glue / bondaweb to put in the felt bits to avoid tricky sewing?

You could assemble all the logos and print in one go. Do they all have to be transferred and then sewn, or could some of them be tranferred straight to where they are going IYSWIM?

Logos need to be on a white background so need transferring then cutting then gluing sewing on carefully as they're going on blue and green backgrounds.

I'm mostly worried about making the stitching neat and attaching the leg bits to the feet bits. Going to just have to go for it and see what happens I think.

On the bright side - the zip looks fab :)

You do know that absolutely noboby but you is going to notice if the stitching is neat, don't you ? I get a lot more paranoid when doing things (like bags, or costumes to be worn at school) which some other adult will have the chance to inspect closely...

Well yes but they will notice if it's all snagged up and sewn back to itself - me and my sewing machine do not get on

Do it by hand - much less hassle than prolonged negotiation with stroppy sewing machines

I'm doing Tweaks collar by hand. The boot covers would take too long though

Collar tacked and then stitched on the machine.

Feet-y bits of boot covers done. Hope they fit now!

To be fair to may machine, I think it's as much user error as machine stroppy-ness.

storming away... all I have done is to iron the fabric painting I did last night but I am working today

I have a "don't drive tired" rule with my machine. After I have unpicked something twice, I stop and leave it for another time. No matter how urgent it is.

Belt is on. Got to do school run now. Have tweeted you a pic stealth