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

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

Was great seeing you blathers! And your lego pine tree! I had a mad dash afternoon after to get dh to take over with the kids and get to the 60th.

It was an old colleague, i swear i looked closer to 60 than her. She had a black shift dress, lacy tights and platform stilettos. Sounds a bit mutton but god she looked amazing and i felt like a right dowdy old tramp.

Just reading your cake plans.with Ds If you make the cake board bigger and get a proper cake box it should keep the sides of the cake really central in the box and then no getting bashed etc. glue the people on with icing like stealth says and its fine. I dont ever make royal icing i use the sugarpaste/water slip that stealth taught me. Sticks everything!!

With nieces cake. Would it be too much or not feasible to make one section nastiness free and one section normal? Sugarpaste them and then slide the sections together on the cake board so no contamination as they are both iced. Then you dont have to eat bleugh cake. Not that your cakes are bleugh! Iyswim.

I'm hoping it won't be a bleurgh cake. I've got almond milk, trex and sunflower spread on the shopping order for tomorrow so I can have a go. If it is, I may very well be making two cakes though :)

What flavour do you think caterpillars are?

I still need to check that the colour gels/pre coloured icing are safe too.

Caterpillars strike me as snot flavour. Do you have that in your big tesco's?

My caterpillar was buttermilk cake - so vanilla flavoured.

What are you avoiding? I have a couple of different brands of fondant that I could check in the morning.

I don't think I've seen snot flavour no DW but the kids are always streaming with it so....

I need to avoid Milk (CMP) and Soy stealth.

Just been googling the trex frosting and I'm really hoping it tastes good now as apparently, it makes a very white frosting which would be perfect for DS's snow cake too!

There is something weird about the idea of eating trex like that isnt there. You see it sat there and the thought of scooping it into your mouth....but i bet its yummy.

OTOH, DW, I wouldn't eat butter by the spoonful either.

Blathers - have you considered a chocolate caterpillar? I just looked at the inmates chocolate cake recipe, and the only thing you would have to submit would be a small amount of buttermilk which could be almond milk or whatever.

I dont eat butter by the spoonful true..but i do melt in in the microwave and pour trillions of it over popcorn slurrrrrp.

Thats why i'm a lardy bum.

When googling this morning, I found someone saying that at the end of the day, butter is a fat and Trex is just pure vegetable fat which made me feel a little better about the frosting. I guess if you wanted to swap one animal fat for another, you'd be closer just using lard!!

I guess when you've mixed it with a box of icing sugar, you won't taste it anyway. It's more likely to change the texture I think.

Chocolate cake sounds good. I'll google that recipe. I was considering a blueberry cake as DN likes blueberries.

By submit, I obviously meant substitute

If you need the recipe let me know - it's a Green and Black one.

Is this it?

I've just bought myself a Mother's day treat - entry to a 10k run! The things I'll do for an hour on my own and a guilt free lunch

That's the one. Corn oil and almond milk and it should be fine.

Hi, I was wondering if you could help me. I am doing a dinosaur themed party for my DD's 3rd birthday in two weeks time. There will be about ten almost or just turned three year olds (plus mums plus three babies all in our house! Yes I am mad ) So far, I've made dinosaur tails and bought foam masks so they can dress up, I'm planning on making dinosaur eggs (coffee salt dough mixture with a mini dinosaur inside) so we can do a treasure hunt. After the treasure hunt when they've broken open the eggs I was going to get out some playdough so they can do dino tracks, plus a couple of big trays filled with stones, branches, etc so they can do some pretend play. And I've made a paper mâché volcano that I can fill with vinegar and bicarb so that it explodes (ok this one might just be because it's fun for me ). Then tea followed by dancing and party games. What I really need to sort out is some kind of a craft activity for when they arrive. Any suggestions?

I'd keep it really simple. If you're doing the craft as they arrive, you need something that the early-arrivers can spend a while on and the late-arrivers can do quickly and which doesn't need much supervision as you'll be popping to answer the door and help people with coats every few minutes....

I'd suggest colouring to be honest. Either buy a themed colouring book and tear out the pages or google for free dinosaur colouring sheets and print a pile off. Allow 2 or 3 per child in my experience. If you wanted to make it a little more exciting, you could print off some scenes and buy some dinosaur stickers to decorate them with. These ones are lovely. These card blanks would work well too and maybe be a little more exciting.

These Dinosaur scratch magnets are cute too and could be added to your party bags at the end.

I would vote for the card blanks - we used the equivalent animal ones for DD's jungle party, and they really enjoyed them (they are quite big!). If you can get a bumper tub of cheap foam stickers and some really washable felt tips (or crayons) they are the best options for decorating - colouring pencils don't work well on that card (or our cheap crappy pencils didn't, at least). You can then use your dinosaurs as additional room decoration, and then they can take them home if they want to.

The alternative would be for them to decorate their own party bags - but that's a bit of a PITA, because someone then has to fill them, and latecomers might feel hard done by that their bags were not as pretty - wheras it really doesn't matter if you are taking home an elaborately decorated card dinosaur, or one to do at home, or none at all...

BTW, do you have an enormous and empty house, or are the 10 tail-waving dinosaurs going to be banished outside to hunt for eggs ?

Reasonable size house although it will be very crowded! We having the party on a Tuesday afternoon and I thought I would only get 5-6 acceptances but almost everyone can make it. I'm hoping the weather will be nice and the patio in our garden will be finished (I'm currently looking out of the window at a mini digger destroying my garden) so we can go outside and run around/do a treasure hunt.

The big card dinosaurs to use as party decorations will be a great idea. I've got loads of crayons already that we can use plus some googly eyes. We've got a small playroom attached to the kitchen so I want to decorate that like a jungle, leaving the lounge a bit more tasteful....

Now just need to get online and start ordering things

Bah. Just typed a long response and then browser crashed

It would be the tails and their ability to knock things off everywhere which would worry me - but that is probably because we have way too much stuff, and a house which is no longer (if it ever was) 3yo-proof.

Fingers crossed for a nice day so that the dino-riot can go outside.

For your jungle room - it might be worth going to your nearest army surplus store and seeing if you can haggle for a scruffy bit of camofluage net. We have a huge bit which cost next to nothing and all that turned out to be wrong with it was that it was dusty (spent a couple of days out in the rain on the washing line and was fine) and had a couple of tangles, which took me 5 minutes to sort out. We draped it over ceiling of village hall, and attached the large selection of cuddly jungle animals which we collectively own, and some large paper leaves - it looked fab and kept all the animals out of reach of sticky small fingers. If you draped it down a wall as well/instead then you could wedge the cardboard dinos in the netting - then they could choose their own dino, decorate it, and return it to the jungle for the rest of the party?

Our house is fairly 3 year old proof. We moved from a much smaller house to this one just over a year ago and haven't managed to fill it up yet. Most of the stuff goes away in cupboards. Camouflage net sounds a great idea but I don't think we'll have a chance to go and and get one (no free time in the next two weeks). Plus my OH is already moaning that I'm going over the top! I was thinking lots of paper leaves, green streamers and balloons everywhere and drawing some dinosaurs to peek in through the windows.

Thanks for all of the ideas, they're fab

Ah - another DH who doesn't quite understand that there is no such thing as "over the top" when it comes to DC's parties . You should show him some of the US super-mum party blogs to put it into perspective (I love your saltdough eggs idea, BTW).

Of course, if you are anywhere close to us, you are welcome to borrow the net...

He keeps telling me that throughout his entire childhood he only had one party so I think that is his point of reference! I have shown him some of the blogs and he just tutted

Thanks for the offer of the net. I'm in Surrey if that's anywhere near you? If not I think I've got it sorted with lot of green balloons, leaves and streamers.

I found the dinosaur egg idea online (flour, salt, used coffee grounds). I made a test egg a couple of weeks ago and it worked really well although before drying out it did resemble a poo!

Ah, no - sorry, Surrey is a long way away and it's too heavy to post.

DH has never acknowledged having had a party, either - TBH I only had them until I was 6 when I threw a monster tantrum at my own party and my father swore I would never have another but spoilt afterthought DB2 had lots, which I helped at, and DH has learned to live with the madness

DS hasn't had one for a couple of years though, and DD will be getting too cool old for them soon

Oh well, thanks so much for the offer but I think it will be fine without the net.

I intend to make the most of the parties before DD thinks I'm too embarrassing. I'm hoping it will last for several years....