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!

that your DD is now a mini party obsessive.

She will have made plenty of friends by the time of her birthday. How big is the class likely to be? Might "all the girls" be do-able?

I think the classes are usually around 22. So yes girls might be an option i should think. If she gets into the village school she'll be going with a girl she goes to preschool and gymnastics with too. There are loads going from preschool actually but the rest are "yucky naughty boys".

DS got invited to a party within about a week of starting school. I think it was mainly kids he'd known from pre school but it worked well.

See how it goes. Within a few days she'll likely be back talking about X and Y and Z that she plays with and you'll be good to go on the mermaid party.

Although the pizza one was lots of fun too.

Whoo hoo, I whinged at Yellow Moon about my battered box and they're refunding my order as a "gesture of goodwill" so now the Blathersgrinch can't complain about me spending money on plastic tat as they were free

I'm sure it can manage to complain about something - they will take up too much space, or some such nonsense .

Shame i dont live closer to an aquarium for mermaids!

Hello all, very excited to have found this thread. I think it might be my spiritual home - I get very carried away with party planning for the DD's!

I'm currently working on DD2's 3rd birthday party next weekend. I'm going for a rainbow theme. Rainbow cake, cupcakes with different coloured icing, rainbow cookies, fruit kebabs, layered rainbow jelly. Any ideas for some rainbow themed savoury food? Also ideas for activities (have Jo Jingles booked so not much time to fill ourselves) and party bag fillers would be great.

I posted earlier and it's disappeared!!

I agreed that the Blathersgrinch would definitely complain about the eggs taking up too much space but as he was likely to do that anyway, at least I'd avoided half of the moaning :) and that DS had had proper, delivered pizza - in his own little box no less - and a nice, long, uninterrupted go on the Xbox without his Sister trying to help and was no longer feeling left out.

He's since had a bath on his own and a couple of chapters of his new book. Not a bad night when you're 5.

Hi madcow I can help, I did a rainbow party for DD's 3rd in December!

I did a rainbow cake too (which went down really well), layered rainbow jellies and fruit rainbows with marshmallows as clouds at each end. I struggled with rainbow savoury food too so ended up with pizzas and crisps which wasn't very themed but went down well. You could always make the pizzas rainbow-ish by making the bases arch shaped and arranging toppings in stripes - tomato, orange cheese, yellow cheese, green peppers, olives?

For activities, I did colouring sheets with lots of coloured pencils on the table and I got some coloured card crowns from Baker Ross which the children decorated with stick on gems and foam stickers. They loved the crowns and they went down really, really well.

I did a mixture of stuff for party bags - coloured windmills, multicoloured crayons, sweeties etc but I think DW's layered sweetie cones were better. You can get cellophane cones from ebay quite cheaply and then layer them up with brightly coloured sweets.

Yes i did rainbow party too. For party bags i wrapped books in rainbow wrapping paper (whsmith). I also gave rainbow lollies to big kids which were a bloody bargain off ebay. I made a huge balloon arch which in fact was piss easy and i gave the balloons away at the end. But at the end of the rainbow balloon arch i had a pot of gold coins forbthe babies who couldnt have lollies. We had a jo jingles type group too who did a big stint of parachute play which looked great on the photos with coloured stripey parachute.

For a balloon arch make sure you have a helper but get a needle and long thread, thread each balloon neck on to the stting and weigh it down at either end. Then you can slide the balloons around on yhe string to space them out and take them off to hand out. It looked amazing as a decoration but was cheap giveaway too.

bargain lollies here

I messaged the seller and i got 25 lollies for a tenner i think it was.

Just don't ask DW for rainbow cake tips

Thanks for all the ideas. I was planning on doing a balloon arch - should they be helium filled or could I do it with ordinary balloons?
Those lollies look amazing but possibly over budget.
Dare I ask about the rainbow cake?! I'm a bit nervous but excited too - this is what I'm planning to replicate
www.myjuicecup.com/rainbow-cake/

You need helium ballons to make an arch so they all lift along and pull it up into the arch.

And the fecking cake..ask blathers for advice cos mine...well jesus. I tried splitting the batter and colouring it, overworked it mixing the colour and they were crap. Then i realised my baking powder was a YEAR out if date?!! In the end i made six individual cake mixes and cakes but i froze them so i made them over a week rather than a mad dash of cakes!

That is very similar to the one I made. I can't remember whether there are any pictures of it on my profile but I can upload some tomorrow if there aren't.

I found it really, really easy. I used the Hummingbird Bakery Vanilla cake recipe and quadrupled it to make 6 layers which I coloured with Sugarflair gels. I layered and coated with the Hummingbird bakery vanilla frosting. I thought it was really easy.

DW's didn't go quite as smoothly

Blathers breezed hers...

I was genuinely a bit when DW started having issues as it'd been a walk in the park for me.

It must have been the out of date baking powder and the new oven I bet.

There were times i actually wept over that cake. And my iven is def wonky!

(Oh and we currently have a rodent in the cavity between my bedroom floor and the lounge ceiling) which makes the shit oven feel like the crown jewels!

*oven!

We were almost ready for me to bake one and DW to do a 3 hour round trip to pick it up :)

I've uploaded a photo for you now.

That Star Wars cake is amazing Stealth!!! Definitely too stressful for me to contemplate

Loved all the younglings costumes, but possibly a bit adventurous for me. I've no sewing machine for starters, and don't fancy attempting to hand stitch a dozen costumes. I came across an idea for a no-sew costume, basically just a felt tunic (rectangle shape, folded over with a v cut out). Thought I could use a beige or cream colour and cut brown felt ties for a waist band. I'm hoping that will have the right kind of feel?

Despite being determined not to start planning the party yet, I already seem to have a list of party games, outfit ideas and have started thinking about party bags and decorations! I've found some cheap Lego Star Wars sticker books and I was thinking of getting some big rolls of black paper and covering them with silver star stickers. Although, I have just found a set of amazing looking Star Wars battle decals - millennium falcon, tie fighters, Death Star etc which would look amazing! Pricey, but very tempted!!!

This month's bbc good food magazine has a recipe for a rainbow cake btw.

Oh, and DW - I'm going to have to watch the Star Wars films again for some inspiration! I'm sure DH and DS will keep me right. DS has already asked me to 'put some effort in' for his party this year. Cheeky bugger, last year's pirate party was fantastic if I do say so myself

Stealth - did you make the pirate waistcoat for me last year (have NC'd a few times since then) - DS still wears it loads!

Yes it was stealth that made it. She's a star like that.

Stealth is amazing. She made my little girl a dragon bag with a tail too

Think I might start baking the cakes this weekend then, in case it goes disastrously wrong. At least then I'll know what height I need when I make the royal icing rainbow. I've got the good food magazine so will try out there recipe.
Just about to order some cellophane cones and rainbow ribbon too - thanks for the idea!