Shirley's party advice part 4 - Better at party planning than Pippa Middleton

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

For games could you do something like apple bobbing but for treasure or would they freak out at putting their faces in water?

I love those jellyfish, DW

You are all amazing! Thank you so much. I knew you wouldn't let me down!

Stealth - that underwater cake is AMAZING.

I'm wondering about the octopus cake TheDoctorsWife46 has linked to...

If you make a cake in a pyrex bowl (and I'm going to sound really stupid here), do you just put your sponge mix in the bowl and cook as usual? Do you need to grease it in a particular way?

I've never used sugarpaste before - how do you make it so smooth? Do I need to do a lot of practising first do you think? In fact, if I'm honest I don't even really know how to make the tentacles, but I'm game for having a go.

Blathers that frankfurter octopus is genius. Hilarious, but genius. I am going to have to give that a go. And yes, of course, seaweed sauce, not pesto...

Oh I'm getting really excited now! I will remember to take better photos this year to show you. Last year my photos were a bit rubbish and I forgot to take photos of the table etc.

We did apple bobbing at a Hallowe'en party and they were fine with it, so that might work well. I thought about a treasure hunt in sand or in balloons, or even just finding some hidden fish shaped chocolates around the hall.

I also saw a game with a paddling pool filled with balloons and fish with paper clips on their noses, and the children had to 'fish' them out with a magnet on a bamboo stick and string fishing line - half way down the page

Also, last year decorating gingerbread rockets went down well, so thought I might do a table with gingerbread fish to decorate.

TheDW Those jelly fish are cool and I could get ds to make some with me in advance of the party too.

Octopus cake looks entirely do-able. It's annoying me now, because I am now sure that I had a cute octopus cake in one of my hundreds of cake books but I can't find it.

If you are a novice with sugarpaste, I would look in the library for a Debbie Brown book as she does the basics really well (just don't take any notice of her timings - everything always takes ages longer than she says). Definitely buy pre-coloured sugarpaste if you want a nice deep colour like that.

Oh, sorry - missed the questions about baking in pyrex.

Grease it well, and I use a baking parchment circle and make cuts into it so that it fits in the bottom, IYSWIM. I would be inclined to use a slightly denser sponge (Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake is my default) as it will hold it's shape better under the weight of the sugarpaste, and be more moist than a victoria sponge.

Stealth thank you so much, great advice. Will go and look up that book in the library this week. I forsee a weekend of baking...

And I've found blue jelly on Amazon of all places! Just ordered it now in case it takes a while to come.

And blastoff sugarpaste is very very similar to playdoh so for tentacles literally you'd be rolling out a sausage shape with the paste. Easy peasy!! If you go to google books type in debbie brown and some of ger cakes are on there to give you an idea. If you type in octopus cake there are also some other ideas with instructions.

Blathers that pinterest board is so cool - except that you could spend a lifetime on a party and not do all of that stuff. So hard to choose....

I really need to become a millionaire. It's the only way I'm going to be able to do all the parties I need to do :)

4 weeks until DD's party now. Really have to start finalising plans.

I went with these for the party bags in the end. Lovely bright rainbow colours.

Sorry for being such a nightmare

So party bags will now be - white paper bags (possibly with a bright sticker on the front) filled with a bag of Rainbow Drops, a lolly, A rainbow crayon, a party blower and a windmill. I might do the cute letters too.

Ooooh ive ordered some blue jelly from amazon now just to have some!! I may use it at the party i may not but it feels nice to have it in reserve.

This morning is the first time in around six weeks that im up, properly dressed rather than grabbing whats clean and hair straightened. I need some more gumpaste but the caketower is def coming along nicely. I really do not enjoy this cake making lark though ive decided. My heart races doing it because i worry about denting it/dropping it/splodging it. I'll be glad to do dd2's because painting that dolly wont be as traumatic.

Blathers have you finished your doll?

No. I haven't finished my dragon either. I've been so poorly, I haven't had the energy. Definitely feeling better now though so will crack on.

"properly dressed rather than grabbing whats clean and hair straightened"

Damn. I knew I was doing something wrong. Having driven 3 hours to the office in the pouring rain for the second day running, I was told by someone that I looked as though I was in pain .

Stealth i know you feel sorry for yourself but god that made me laugh. In my former life i used to be a senior manager for bt and you described my old working day! Now we're poor and ive got sick down my leg and dd1 whining that shes tired. If someone asked me to even dial into a conference call nowadays i think i'd turn to mush. Somewhere in here is an intelligent business minded young woman but the mirror shows me a greying hagard blob that knows cbeebies inside out!

Woodchip- i actually got dd1's old room stripped of it in a day once. I used a carving fork to scratch into the paper soaked it in vinegar/water and ut really did scrape off nicely.

A cake.... Hmmm well you could re-ice a ready made one? That'd be quick. Off to google simple cakes.. Whats he into?

Mens cakes are rubbish!! Do blathers pizza cake!!!

Pizza cake is a good call. It would be transportable as well. Shame I didn't read that an hour ago - I could have got pizza for the DC and saved the box. I feel DH and I may be eating pizza whilst stripping woodchip.

We have acres of the bloody stuff to do, eventually, so we bought a big steam stripper, which does work, but they are big rooms and it still takes forever. All the walls and ceilings were covered in it, apart from 3 rooms which have artex on both walls and ceilings instead.

I asked Dh's friend who worked at PE and he got me a fresh box. It was really easy to transport too.

Come on!!!! Easy peasy pizza cake! Think blathers said she would have grated White choc on instead of yellow sugarpaste so that cuts the time down a treat!!

What else did you put on it in the end, Blathers?

Easy peasy! That cake took skill :p

It was a large flat sponge, covered in red frosting, either white choc or yellow sugar paste cheese (I put on both but removed one cause it looked odd, I think DW is right and it was the yellow) Mushrooms were made out of Ivory sugarpaste and painted with brown colouring. Pepperoni was circles cut out of fruit leather. Did I do green peppers too?? I'll find a pic

I'm sure if stealth attempts one, mine will look shit very quickly.

Ha ha sorry to say its easy...lets not forget that i am currently shaping gumpaste into a frigging tower with roof and (ahem stealth) working lantern!!!! That pizza is easy in comparison.

Come on stealth this is a breeze for you! You sculpted a whole dragon the other week!! You can lob cheese on a pizza (yours looked lovely blathers) dont forget the ferrero meatballs i think you thought they would be ott blathers but they would look suitably manly for your db stealth!!! Get that glazing gel stuff out and make them all oily!! And i reckon any pizza shop would give you a box! A plumbers gave me pipe!!!

Yep, if stealth attempts it, it'll make mine look crap but I'm prepared to take one for the team.

I bet if you asked for a spare box the next time you bought pizza, they'd give you one happily.

Whoa ignore my overuse of !!!!!!!!!!!'n

Mate if stealth did a rapunzel cake it'd make mine look shit. Yours looked lovely

I did. I was rather proud of the teddy bears picnic one too