Share your top tips for children's birthday parties with Cadbury and you could win a £200 Love2Shop voucher NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

Cadbury would like to hear your top tips for hosting a great themed birthday party for your DCs.

From pirates to Peppa Pig, baking to science - if you've thrown a great children's party, what theme did you choose and how did you bring it to life? Did you use decorations to set the scene, choose party food to fit with a fantasy world, or tailor activities you knew the kids would love? What did you put in the goody bags to go with your theme? And did you create a special birthday cake?

We'd love to hear about all the different ways you incorporated your child's favourite things into the day - to help inspire other parents who are party planning.

Everyone who shares their birthday party ideas and inspiration on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to where one MNer will win a £200 Love2Shop voucher.

Please note your comments may be included on Cadbury's pages on MN, their social media channels, and possibly elsewhere, so please only post if you're comfortable with this.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

We didn't have a party for DS (age 3) this year as we were travelling home due to a family member in hospital and couldn't plan anything for the weeks around it as we didn't know what way it was going to do, but we did ask him what cake he'd like (I was all set to bake it if he'd said chocolate/banana/lemon/jam cake, but he said SPIDERMANNNNN! so I went to Asda instead!) and I made up a load of party bags and sent them into preschool. Took a lot of stress out of it to be honest. I think the whole lot cost me £40. It was nice to get my revenge on the other parents for all the tat we have accepted over the year.. although it backfired as DS was given a spare one to bring home. Gah!

I have been to a Saturday morning party (10am-12pm) which provided lots of coffee, scones and mimosas for the grownups, it was a great idea and finished up with the kids having had lunch and a good run and play, with plenty of the weekend left to do our own thing.

Our number one party food that always, always has to be done though is rice krispie buns.. DH and I always had them growing up. It was a special treat if you had it with Cadburys rather than cooking chocolate - posh krispie buns! DH actually bragged about it to me once - his mum used the good chocolate but ours were made with cooking chocolate and golden syrup and definitely the poor relation. Sadly last time I tried it with cadburys I forgot that most modern-day chocolate has the anti-melting ingredient now and in the words of Radiohead it "just crumbled and burned"... so it's back to chocolate that is guaranteed to melt now!

I'm looking forward to doing a version of my mum's ice-cream cake for a birthday party one day - two blocks of HB/Walls vanilla carved as needed to form a train, with a chocolate mini-roll for the funnel and another one sliced up for the wheels, and the whole thing liberally decorated with smarties, chocolate buttons and sprinkles. DD has a summer birthday, so I think I will be making a few of these in the years to come!

I like doing Halloween parties. I clear the deck, paint the faces of the DC who arrive earliest and then let them run absolute riot. The mummy game with toilet paper is always a hit. The chocolate game goes down well for all ages, and then when it gets dark I turn off all the lights, give them all glow sticks and let them play Sardines. We don't have a huge house but it is on 4 stories so there's lots of scope for them to wear themselves out, and if it's in the dark then it's pretty easy for them to find somewhere to hide. I tape our bedroom off with police tape first.

For under 8s go to soft play the kids love it and the venue will do everything for you.

We had a joint party for my 6 yr old who is police and roadwork mad, and my 3 yr old who is dinosaur mad. I managed to make a dinosaur police cake, with volcano and road block to keep them both very happy!

I took the cowards way out & booked an entertainer!! My little one turned 2 last year & we invited all his friends from nursery & the entertainer was fantastic - it was £140 for 2 hours - but we did all the food on the cheap the party bags were a steal (one of the big bonus' of having a January baby - making the most of the January sales!) & my mother-in-law made the cake! Entertainer boughts loads of interactive toys - balloons, pom poms, wands, cuddly toys, etc - kids had a whale of a time & all I had to worry about was making sure the grown-ups were sorted! I would have had no clue how to entertain them on my own, so this was well worth it for me :)

Last year we got a bouncy castle, not too much more planning needed apart from that! Would also recommend getting face paints.

Make your own cakes to give a personalised touch and don't stress out!

Make a strict time for the party, organize games and keep them busy so that they don't have time to run around your house.

Think outside of the box. One of my best birthday parties was held at an adventure park with a long rope slide. My friends were told to wear clothes which it was ok to get dirty and we had great fun running around, getting dirty and having fun. My parents borrowed a camper van and cooked sausage and beans. Everyone said it was the best party they had been to.

Village halls are great & very cost effective! Amazon & Poundland are brilliant for party bags. A princesses & superhero theme will always go down well with younger children who want the whole class to come. We've always done a tray bake for the party cake, not a showstopper but easy to cut up & pass out.

A bouncy castle is a great thing to have at a childrens party. Go for a Prince's and Princesses theme (or Frozen if you really want) and make a castle cake using a square base and upside down ice cream cones as turrets.

Make it a theme and adapt traditional party games in accordance with this.The kids love it.

For stress free definitely best to go with a play centre, who can do the food. Although there is the worry factor if anyone will turn up.

If you can enrol friends and family, that's great. A very kind friend of mine even did lots of last minute food for me as my dad was taken into hospital the night before my dds birthday. If anyone offers help I would snap it up. No matter how small, it really makes a difference.
I would agree that balloons and bubbles go down very well with kids, luckily our entertainer was fabulous also and managed to smooth over the bumps in our party.

I do simple finger food bought from the shop.Lots of nibbles,always have balloons.The one thing I make is a Pinata and fill it with sweets and small toys. I buy an ordinary cake but order an edible photo to place on the cake,inexpensive but personalised.The kids love their favourite characters on it.

One thing I learned quite quickly (having been up until after midnight making and putting together DS1's 5th birthday rocket cake) is to make the cake two days before - then you only have to ice it the night before and it is a lot less stressful.

Another thing that reduces stress levels is to hire a venue for the birthday party. We always do traditional party game type parties and have done them both at home and in the local village hall. It is SO much better in the village hall: the kids have lots of space for running around, your house doesn't get wrecked and it is much easier to clear up after the party is over.

Finally, make a really big list of party games - more than you think you'll need. As soon as you run out of games: carnage.

DD's birthday is in October so we always do a Halloween themed party at home. We are expanding our collection of decorations every year! Costumes are always available in the supermarkets.
Last year we had a craft table where they could make their own witches/wizards hats, easy party food (for parents too - I find it easier if they stay!), pass the parcel with little monster prizes (bought in bulk from eBay) and musical statues where everyone got monster stickers when they stood still.
But the best thing I did was to invite my sister in law who is amazing with children and had all the activities running smoothly on the day. Wow.

It's no more expensive and far less stressful to take them out somewhere than to have it at home. I can still see ice-cream stains on the conservatory roof from ds2's 7th birthday party and he's 18 now!

Themed Decorations, an amazing cake and an easy, child friendly buffet. An entertainer is a must for me if you're hiring a village hall.... I hate parties where kids just run around in a hall going crazy, they can do that at the park any day of the week.

Or alternatively... go to a soft play area or organised party place (like laser quest for the older ones) and pay £x amount per head. It often works out cheaper.

My son was obsessed with fire engines when he was little, so we hired a fire engine for his birthday. It was brilliant - it had disco lights and music inside and they got to drive in it to a local park, where they each got a turn letting off the hoses. It was great fun and they loved dressing up in the uniforms which were provided.

We made our own fire engine cake (it took tons of food colouring to get the icing red enough!) and bought fire engine themed party bags, napkins etc from ebay.

All in all, it didn't cost too much and he still talks about it now, years later :)

I've done a few full on parties where I always go a bit overboard but my most memorable one was the spy party I did for me daughter. I made invitations covered in brown paper in the shape of a briefcase with their 'mission' should they wish to accept it!

Kids came dressed as their favourite spy or superhero.

I hired a hall and made a camouflage tunnel that the children entered by (adults used the back door)

I made target practice games out of old bike boxes and code breakers using a UV light and invisible pen, they had to find a number code to be able to move on. There was also a cargo net for them to scramble under and a 'find the hidden bugs'.

For party bags I got them all watches that were really calculators and other spy related things, like fake mobile phones etc.

Organise a nice theme and get the kids to get more involved by going with the Theme as in fancy dress outfits! they will enjoy it :-)

little foods that fit in their little hands. and relax about the mess that will be made, it can be cleaned up so don't stress over sticky little fingers!

Ask your son / daughter what they want and go with that (wherever possible). No point ever in trying to compete with other parents. It's your son / daughters big day so do it for them and no-one else.

I chose a princess party for my daughter, they all wore princess dresses and were pampered, had a pedicure, nails painted, hair done and make up on, the party bags had jewellery, hair accessories and make up in, they had a lovely day.