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

[BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead]

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

I thought you were going to say she had hijacked your theme and you needed a new one.

Invitations definitely need to go to the top of the list.

Have ordered some. Now is not the time to be faffing about making them. This is an emergency!

A whole month in advance but at least it's not me being party-crazy this time :)

Proximity to Christmas is more than enough excuse for super-early invitations IMO

Hi all. Just popping in to wave 'Hi'.
We're enjoying our holiday, will get back to planning soon.

people people, remember the whole "i need to make the tower and stick it in the cake retrospectively" design debate...

Okaaay... Well what about this

Ignore her decorating skills

They've stuck icecream cones end to end with a skewer through them and one on top. I can actually bake cake into them for stability like my cupcakes were going to be with skewer protruding the bottom i could just spear the cake with the tower. I mean ignore her decorating skills could i get sugatpaste onto the wafer and actually decorate the EDIBLE structure? Whats gonna stick without dissolving it?

I don't like it as much as the scaffolded version [sorry].

However, if you were going to go that way, I would coat the cones in chocolate to give you a moisture-proof surface to decorate. If you went for coloured candy melts then it would give you whatever colour you want, then use more chocolate to attach sugarpaste flowers, vines, etc.

Stealth remind me about the scaffoled version, you mean the whole drilling a pole in scenario etc? I know i know but i just cant get this nailed out and time is ticking. I really gonna end up with no cake at this rate. Ive just spent all day wrapping xmas presents for all the people that i'll be seeing at the party as thats the xmas gift exchange. Still have to glue flowers to bobby pins and i dont think its gonna work. Buy mini plastic pots to decant stuff into for lunchboxes. Make dh's flynn rider style t shirt.

And the cake. Shit. The cake.

Disagreeing with stealth for the first time ever I think the cone one looks OK.

If it would save you time and panic DW, go for it.

What are you gluing flowers to bobby pins for? Would sectioning clips be better? Do you have a glue gun?

Right you buggers. You will help me iron this out now because i've hit the wall. The party panic, its all gonna be crap and i'm running out of time.

Okay i absolutely have to make this tower this week, over the week. So, i've found this idea here: Save my arse cake

she says in her tutorial (thank the lord a tutorial) that she made it by covering a kitchen roll tube and the top was gumpaste. Buuuut she's driven it into a single tier and says it was too heavy. Sooo what if i used a wrapping paper tube. If i decorated the top thurd and drove two thirds into 2 tiers it wouldnt be top heavy? Buuuut plastic pipe is less likely to go soggy and prob has some self dupporting core strength.

Speak to me... Then i'll tell you the flowers dilemma. I must resolve this because im inches away from a fabulous party snd im gonna fall at the last hurdle!

Ffs ignore the typos im a woman on the edge.

That is amazing! The figure inside is lovely.

I'd go for plastic pipe over cardboard definitely. I'd make it long enough to go all the way through the cake to give it the best chance of staying up if you really don't want to screw wooden dowel into a board

I really dont wanna be screwing anything

if you both pm me your email addies i'll send you pics of the creations so far!

Very cute tower. Definitely needs to be plastic pipe, and go down through the cake to the board.

Looking at the shape of that tower, I am thinking that what you really need is an ice cream tub or one of those tubs that mini crispy cakes and the like come in, that you can cut to shape and glue on to the top of the pipe, then ice the lot.

Ooo ooh . You could put one of your LED tealights in the tower.

Hello ladies

I have decided I'm pretty much a cake failure and asked a friend to do it

I just wondered if anyone has any good website recommendations of where I can buy all party bag bits, plates, cups etc. from one place? I really don't want to drag the baby up and down Roman road trawling the pound shops, but I want some cheap crap to fill up bags. Had a look on Amazon, but with all the different sellers and separate delivery charges, it amounts to quite a bit... any ideas?

Ebay can be good. There are quite a few sellers that do all sorts of party bag bits and will sell you a boat load with only 1 shipping cost.

Tesco also good as are Hobbycraft these days.

I adore that Pascal outfit DW. It is sooooo cute

Ebay, or Baker Ross, or Hawkins Bazaar.

Talking of party bags, what on earth am I going to put in DD's?

All I've got so far is a rainbow crayon!

I'll do some rainbow drops and a lolly too and DD loves party blowers so we'll have one of them too.

But what else?

Bubbles?

Rings?

Tethers i use partyrama as i find them cheaper than ebay on a lot of stuff like a lunchbox i think was 35p but about 55p on ebay.

Yes stealth well done i will use a tealight!! My friend says she got the mini figures for dd's birthday so i should have a rapunzel to put in there too all backlit and sparkly!!!

Blathers i thankyou for pascal i must admit i nearly melted when she started crawling about and those big eyes were boggling at me on her head!

Right, ahem, as i seem to be focused on the cake now, plan in place etc etc, party bags....

chocolate elephant

more rainbow bits ignore the rainbow willy straws

I'd considered bubbles.

I'm not sure she'd get rings.

I've seen some stretchy, smiley men she might like though. She asked for 'toys'!

Maybe a little pad to go with the crayons or is that not necessary?

rainbow bubbles

bouncy rainbow eggs

Dh has a lifelong aversion to bouncy balls and bins them the second he can get them off the kids. DS and DD will be getting bags too and it seems a bit daft to buy something I know even we'll bin within hours

Bubbles looking good though. Will people want bubbles in December when they can't take them outside though?

Fans might be nice?

Hang on, how old is she, Blathers? I am behind on my background reading, sorry

thanks for website recs, am checking them out now...