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

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

[runnervt]

Hi party gurus. I'd like to ask some advice please. We're having a party in our house next Saturday for Ds2's 4th birthday. We're going to be decorating gingerbread men as one activity but I'm not sure what kind of icing to use. I've got tubes of icing but I wonder if the kids wouldn't be able to squeeze any out themselves. I would make some normal icing but that might be tricky to time right. Or would I be able to make it before the party?
Basically I'm after any decorating tips on offer!
Thank you

[YoHoHoAndABottleOfMilk]

Hello everyone. You may remember me from the last thread and was organising a pirate party for my dd. just popped back in for an update!

I had a lot of trouble sourcing some bandanas so had a eureka moment and bought skull and bone and skull and sword black fabric from eBay for about £8. Gave the whole lot to sil to sew magic into bandanas. DH is going to go and pick them up on Thursday.

I got two cardboard boxes painted them dark brown and have made a "ship". Just need to make the sail now and that should be done by next week.

I also had a thick cardboard roll left from the vinyl we bought for the bathroom. I couldn't be bothered to throw it away, so had another eureka moment and cut it in half, covered in yellow tissue paper and made 2 palm trees.

Finally (!) I made a treasure chest from an old shoe box and have filled it with newspaper and then black tissue paper and have arranged gold, silver and red Christmas decoration beads, small decorative gold boxes (to look like gold nuggets) and some gold coins and other sparkly paper to look like bangles and jewellery. I will put this in a little "pirate cove" I'll make by putting a sandy coloured throw on the floor and add some optic fibre and chameleon lamps (all from 99p shop) to give it a bit of atmosphere.

The party is next week and I'm getting a bit nervous now! Still haven't thought of a menu and cake still needs to be decorated. I will buy plain iced cakes and paint/decorate myself.

Would iced fairy cakes be ok for pudding?

[Blatherskite]

Hi runnervt I did gingerbread bear decorating at DD's 2nd birthday last year. We had DS and his friends too who were all 4 at the time.

In my experience, the little tubes are far too hard for them to squeeze out and they get fed up with trying very quickly and then wander off. What we did was mix powdered icing up in little bowls (either disposable plastic ones or reusables from the Supermarket or IKEA which tend to be under £1 for 6-ish) and give the children teaspoons to spread it on their biscuit with. If you make up a few bowls, it makes it easier for everyone to get a go and means you can make up a few colours at the same time too. As long as you make it thick-ish (think double cream), it doesn't make too much mess and sprinkles/sweeties will stick better than on the tubed stuff too. If you make it slightly runnier than you want and cover the bowls with cling film, it should last for a couple of hours.

You can always put the tubes out too. I did but they were only really used by the parents and my much older Nieces and Nephews.

My other top tip is to buy a big pack of plain paper plates and give each child their biscuit on the plate as these will then contain 90% of the icing sugar drips and wayward sprinkles and save you a lot of tidying up! It also means that you can write the child's name on the plate and know who's biscuit is who's at a glance and the plate can easily slip inside a sandwich bag or be wrapped in cling film to make carrying the finished product home much easier of you're not intending for them to eat them straight away. Some will want to, some won't.

[Blatherskite]

Your party sounds brilliant YoHo. I love the Palm trees idea!

For the past 3 or 4 parties I've done, I've bought a sheet cake from Costco and just decorated it. There is no shame in it

Depending on how many sweets you're giving them and whether you intend to give them cake at the party too, I might not bother with pudding at all. I tend to do a fruit platter to assuage the guilt and then give them cake and sweeties at the end of the party.

Are you going for a themed menu or a more-likely-to-be-eaten menu? Sandwiches, cocktail sausages, pizza etc all go down well if you want them to eat, otherwise I'm sure we can have lots of fun dreaming up pirate food for you. Crossbones breadsticks maybe? Parrot chicken wings? Fish goujons obviously

[YoHoHoAndABottleOfMilk]

Thanks blather, the fruit platter sounds perfect for a "pudding". I actually saw a picture somewhere of a shark fruit salad, where they'd cut a watermelon into a sharks head and filled with fruit. Don't know where I'll get a watermelon from seeing as its winter! Will have a look around.

I'm a bit worried about the timing of the party, it's 2-4pm so don't know if I should serve sandwiches or something else? I wanted to do pizzas but it'll end up costing too much.

I would have liked to have done piratey food, but am thinking it will just go over their heads at aged 4-5!

I have another question, would children really be sad if there were no party games? I've bought some little crafty pirate bugs from here for them to make and take home and I've hired a indoor bouncy slide and I'll have some bubbles blowing around.
I wonder if they'll miss a pass the parcel or musical statues?

[Blatherskite]

That sharks head sounds amazing! You could always make something out of paper mache around a fruit bowl if you can't find a watermelon?

You could do the shark infested jellies that we've all been desperate to do if you fancied something to go with the fruit? You'd need to get the blue jelly ordered ASAP though

[YoHoHoAndABottleOfMilk]

The shark infested jellies sound cool too, but I promised myself no more ordering online for last minute things this week! I've just seen some long shaped watermelons on tesco online, so that's sorted!

[runnervt]

Thanks blathers. That sounds like a good plan. And anything that saves a little on the mess side must be good!

[Blatherskite]

Help me. I'm >< this close to ordering the blue jelly and have just had a wave of sense guilt worry

I already have Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Purple jelly. Do I really need to spend £6 ordering blue jelly for a no doubt un-noticeable stripe in some rainbow jellies?

If it were shark jellies then it is obviously important but is anyone really going to notice if I don't spend more than 50% of the jelly cost on blue jelly? I got the plastic wine glasses to put it in from a £1 shop, it probably cost less than £6 for the jelly and the containers so far!

Am I being sensible or losing my party mojo?

[stealthsquiggle]

Skip the Blue. Save it for shark infestation. Or share with DW to halve the cost.

[Tinkerisdead]

I'll share the cost with you no problem but will be have enough? Note the time? I am in a haze of pain and painkillers. Went to the walk in centre and got antibiotics as my mum looked in my throat and shrieked. Not the white patches i was expecting but green slime just hanging in my throat!!

Dont that put you off jelly . i'm sat here listening to an owl hooting outside my window.

[Blatherskite]

I'm feeling better today. The Doctor said no running but I was getting really desperate to be out so offered to keep a friend company today. It was laps so I figured I could stop whenever I wanted - and ended up running 11 miles!!

I won't be able to walk tomorrow but I feel good now.

I think I'm just going to miss out the blue jelly. I could share with you DW, but one of us would still need to post it to the other which would mean we wouldn't save very much postage-wise.

[tethersend]

Get well soon DW and Blathers

I have just realised that we have invited FAR too many people to the party. We could end up with 30 kids. I feel faint.

[Blatherskite]

It's do-able. We had 30-ish for DD's 2nd. It makes pass the parcel a bit more complex but it's not the end of the world. They tend to amuse each other and save you the hassle.

It is definitely one to have in a hall and not at your house though.

[stealthsquiggle]

30 is ok, in a hall. Chase responses, though, because there is nothing more annoying than planning for 30 and ending up with 20. I may, possibly, in the past, have primed a DC to tell their friends that if their parents don't reply they won't get a party bag Sudden unexplained rushes of responses may have followed.

[tethersend]

It's not so much of a hall as a largish classroom... so, doable but tight.

I'll do two pass the parcel circles and bugger musical chairs- any other good games? I've got:

Pass the parcel
Musical statues
Pinata
Pin the tail on the donkey

Plus craft table, eating and running wild (not necessarily in that order)

Stealth, I would fall to my knees and thank a god I don't believe in if only 20 turned up

[Tinkerisdead]

Tethers if it helps instead of pass the parcel i'm passing a bag to lucky dip from otherwise the unwrapping and tracking whos had a turn is a nightmare.

Blathers i can live without jelly no probs but dont sulk if i fold in feb and order some! Glad to hear you enjoyed the run but dont overdo it and put yourself back!

To everyone else fab fab party ideas!!

Moonpig have a tangled '4' card so im ordering that tomorrow!

[ToffeeWhirl]

Having added up how much it will cost to make DS's Minecraft cake, not to mention the time and effort involved, I'm wondering whether it's possible to buy a readymade cake, then re-ice it to make it into the cake DS wants. Ocado do a sponge cake for 20 that would do nicely. Does anyone know if this would work? Am not sure whether I would have to take the icing off and re-ice (the cake needs to be green!) or whether I can just ice over the top.

Have seen the room where we are holding the party and it's perfect . Loads of room for lots of children to run around.

[ToffeeWhirl]

Have just done some more exact calculations. It will cost three times as much to make my own. I thought making your own was meant to be cheaper ?

[stealthsquiggle]

Are you calculating just the cost of baking, or icing too? Unless you literally have nothing, I generally reckon the cost of baking is more or less the same as buying until you get to the icing...

[ToffeeWhirl]

I literally have nothing!

[stealthsquiggle]

Ah - in which case I understand the maths. Unless you are sure you will use tins, etc lots, buy the cake. You could just paint it green (paste colour + vodka) which would save double icing it?

[ToffeeWhirl]

Thanks, Stealth. My Ocado order was about to run out of time, so I panicked and just ordered the lot, plus all the food for the party, plus a load of wine for us to drink after it's all over . At the last minute, I decided I'd rather just make the cake myself and, hopefully, it will taste better than shop-bought (assuming I haven't burnt it).

Am feeling so stressed now. I always feel like this before my children's parties. I meant last year's to be the last proper party, but DS2 had other ideas.

[stealthsquiggle]

Stupid amounts of stress immediately before parties are part for the course, IME. It's like childbirth - it wears off and you forget

[Blatherskite]

The mother of DD's closest friend has just invited us to see Santa at pretty much the same time as DD's party

Better get the invites ordered and written out before we lose everyone!