Shirley's party advice part 5 - Here to Help - come and say Hi

[Blatherskite]

Didn't notice we'd gotten to the end of the thread!

Bother.

try again

I love the idea of Alice too, but am saving it until she is older and too cool for other themes

We proper party-porned Alice in Wonderland on a previous thread. I neeeeed to do it one day now.

One day when DD is older and I can talk her into a half birthday (Merry un-birthday) party as it needs to be done in a garden.

Either that or I'll pinch it for my 40th or something :)

By 7 i want dd taking a friend to the cinema and pizza after!

Love those ice cube trays! I did attempt some pirate chocolates last year with a silicon pirate teay, but it was a bit of a disaster. I think I really needed to temper the chocolate but didn't realise until it was too late. Jelly worth a try!

No you don't really, DW - or you won't with DD2. I let DS 'get away' after his 8th (although he loves helping with DD's) and now I am all about how few parties I have left

Blathers - my 4th has been and gone and I am hoping to talk DD into it before my 50th

40th, even....

Yesterday i was dreaming up a party a bit like a budget wedding in a garden, bring a dish job. I knew of the perfect place a 10 bedroomed manor house near mil that hires out house and garden for peanuts. Then i googled for prices and found its up for sale for nearly a million. I was thoroughly pissed off that it ruined my party plan.

Then i remembered it was a hypothetical dream party. So i filed it away under "my 40th".

Hmm stealth you may be right about feeling sad about parties but i timed by kids crap around christmas and the skint me. Soooo if i can offload them to frankie and benny's then i could have summer extravaganzas for adults.

Im stilll smarting over my 30th. On the actual day we'd done nothing and i had dd1 who was 6 weeks old constantly on the boob. At about 5pm dh just bundled us in the car and said right we'll drive to your mums leave dd for 2hrs to have a lovely meal and stay there to feed dd etc. so i went fir the meal expressed about 6oz of milk just in case. Dd had awful colic and cried nonstop anyway. I was gone 1hr 45 mins and my mum sent me a photo of her sleeping so i sobbed cos i missed her and rushed home. I got back and dd was screaming, bottle empty and my mum screamed at me that my baby was starving and feed it!!! I still feel sick with guilt and i know deep down she wasnt starving her just wanted mummy.

6 months later dh had a massive massive garden party with three bbq's pumping out food for his 30th!!! So i'm owed!!!

Thanks for those links, just gone over everything and have some great ideas now for games etc which I would never have thought of.

Am going to buy card treasure boxes & fill with picnic stuff in for each kid - sandwich, crisps, grapes maybe? I always get flustered doing food. Loved blue jelly though. Plus treasure cupcakes with gold buttons and jelly jewels.

Not sure about birthday cake design yet. Last year was monster party- cake pic on profile!

Still trying to think of inexpensive decorations- what about a net on ceiling with balloons inside & green streamers hanging down (for inside room)? I have lots of bunting and will get balloons. It would be stupid to buy a life sized Captain Jack Sparrow, wouldn't it...?

Me too on the crap timing (October and November) but I get quite panicky thinking that I only have 2, maybe 3 parties left.

That's why having Shirley around was great. Her teenaged DC still had, and appreciated, mad parties .

fishing net strung over the ceiling with things hung from it?

stealth- yes, perfect. Like the pirate skeleton too...

We had the pirate skeleton too, I forgot about that. I have it stashed away for use at future Halloween parties.

I have 4 boxes of Halloween decor stuff, DT. Lots of coloured lightbulbs. Love Halloween parties...

Stairs - why not fill the chests with the savoury food and then have a loot table of cakes, jellies etc?

Am I allowed to show you my pirate ship cake? It was the closest I ever got to making cakes for money (auction of promises - went for £25 - bargain)

Loot table is a good idea.

Yes! Please show! Pirate cake would be beyond me but I love a good stare at someone else's effort!

does this work?

Treasure chest is the sane and sensible option for a pirate cake, though.

Stealth, your cakes are fantastic!

I do agree that a treasure chest cake is ridiculously easy. I was really pleased with mine - it was my first attempt at a novelty style cake.

Right, I've got cheap mini pizzas and some extra toppings for tomorrow's red nose packed lunch and I'm going to set red grapes, blueberries and some cocktail cherries into red jelly. All I can think of for the third section is some red noses cut from a red pepper? I might do green and orange ones too just to make it a bit more interesting....

Stealth's cakes are amazing.

Stealth is that a little man at the top of the mast?