Posts Tagged ‘party’
when my friend told me she was pregnant i really wanted to do something nice for her: she’s a very generous person and deserved to have some spoiling! so with the help of a mutual friend, we threw a pretty little shower to celebrate the imminent arrival of her second beautiful boy!
unfortunately this could not be the lavish affair i envisioned: my savings are in direct contrast to how much i care for my friend, so this was to be a challenge in thriftiness! just as well my friend is a lover of vintage – it seemed fitting to theme the shower with a staple of all our childhoods: little golden books. i emailed out an invitation (excuse the top secret redacted parts!) to her guest list:
after one too many evenings “researching” baby showers on pinterest, i got off my butt and made some golden book bunting from a box of badly damaged books the awesome estelle donated to me. sure bunting is now ubiquitous but nothing says HEY YOU GUYS IT’S A PARTY! like bunting does.
seeing as most of my friend’s guests live on the opposite side of town to me, our mutual friend dani generously offered up her house. it was such a great room to base the party in – a mantlepiece made for an easy focal point/tableux and we pushed her dining table up against the fireplace for the buffet setting. the day of the shower was REALLY hot and i completely spaced out and didn’t take a full shot of the table, mantle etc. am i fired as a blogger? i was too busy sweating.
other decoration consisted of fresh flowers (a must, right?!) and my son’s little golden books (don’t worry – he got them back at the end of the day). i also made ‘showers’ of scalloped circles to hang down between the mantle and the buffet.
making lamingtons is especially fun when they’re pastel baby blocks! i cheated and bought a slab sponge (trust me, no one wants to eat a sponge i’ve made. i don’t do sponges, and i don’t do scones) then cut it into cubes, dipped each side in pastel colored icing glaze and coated in coconut. if you’re not familiar – lamingtons are generally chocolate or ‘pink’. don’t they look fuzzy and sweet? big love to deb for the vintage sheet table cloth.
we had fresh lemonade which was wonderful on such a hot day. i need to make this more often! i put 20 lemons through our juice extractor and added about a cup or more of honey. when we served it we mixed it with mineral water, so i suppose its more cordial-like than straight up juice. in conclusion: yum.
the next best thing to the cold rice paper spring rolls (which vanished in seconds) were the melon salad cups. don’t they look pretty? i had pastel melamine cups left over from my son’s alice in wonderland party 2 years ago, and at last i had an excuse to use a melon baller. fresh chiffonade mint and a trio of melons and blueberries made this really refreshing and satisfying snack on such a hot day.
it was really fun to put this shower together – i love how much help i had from dani, and even my guy got to baking for me to help out!! he’s just learning to cook so thats a big deal! we didn’t have any activities or games. showers aren’t hugely part of the culture in australia and forcing people to craft or play game shows seemed a bit weird. it was great to just chat and catch up with everyone. most of all i’m proud of how nice the day turned out – it was really satisfying to put together something cute on such a tiny budget!
don’t forget i’m offering this printable treat box for halloween just click here to purchase!
why are some printables no longer free?
please note: i do not offer tech support, or customization on printables.
and don’t forget you can grab this complete party pack i designed! purchase once and print them out forever!
its october! i declare it officially halloweening season. even my blog template agrees! so you know what you should do? you should have a halloween party! and i have made you everything you need – BYO pumpkins and people!
this halloween i’ve teamed up with modern printables to provide you with all the elements to throw a fab and fun halloween shindig. just download, use the editable fields to enter your information on the invitations, place settings, and treat bags, then print and party on. the best part? buy just once and print as many as you like – forever! what a saving!
see how you can enter your own info? its the magic of PDF my friends – handwriting is for chumps (and those with nice handwriting).
in the kit you receive printable invitations, envelopes, bunting, folding place cards, cupcake toppers/envelope seals, cupcake wrappers, and a treat bag. can you STAND IT? no. so go grab yourself this kit right now and party on, wayne!!
and as an extra special treat for you, my beautiful and precious readers, i have a little treat box printable AS WELL!
you know the drill: purchase, print, cut, glue+fold and fill with caaaaandyyyyy!
please note: i do not offer tech support, or customization on printables.
why are some printables no longer free?
so, we had a party… it was pretty epic. feel free to skim over and admire the photos, or continue reading and find out how you can have an epic party too – i’m even sharing party printables!
each year, around june i ask my son what he wants for his september birthday party. i love parties, so i get excited early and i’m eager to start planning! the rest of the year we’re busy and we have to say “no” to a lot of stuff, but birthday time is SACRED! so far we’ve had “alice in wonderland”, “space” and this year he asked me for a “willy wonka/charlie and the chocolate factory” themed party. i thought that was pretty neat considering he share’s his birthday with roald dahl and we’ve read the book multiple times and watched both movies many multiples of times.
this theme is a blessing and a curse, though. you have so much inspiring material to begin with that its not like you need to brainstorm too hard, but then both the book and the movies provide such awe inspiring descriptions of the factory that that’s a BIG job to try and live up to!
i started off “small” with the invitations. the obvious choice was to send out bars of chocolate with golden tickets! and who am i to question the obvious choice?! however i’m neither made of postage money or chocolate so i opted for 2D double-sided paper wonka bars that were cheaper and simpler to post.
i made you a special printable version to use for your own wonka party! and don’t forget to ask your print shop to print them double sided – just hand write in the party host, the location, time and date, your phone number and “RSVP by” date.
please note: i do not offer tech support, or customization on printables.
angel food truffles, plate candy decorations, chocolate+candy spoons
cake batter rice krispies, banana splits, rainbow jello
pinterest came through big time with decor ideas, and the rest was just some creative thinking. above are some of the inspiring bits and pieces that pinterest delivered. i didn’t use them all, but maybe you’ll find them useful.
the big issues i had to solve with making this party all that it could be were:
a) making a big impact, on a small budget and scale
b) not wasting too much stuff (food, money, materials)
a tight color palette is the answer to all of life’s problems, but it helps parties look well put together with minimal effort and expense. turns out there’s not much chocolate brown party supply out there so i happily used the groovy pink/orange/yellow color scheme of the wonka bar packaging.
you can make a big impact with a knock-out buffet display – let the food display be part of the decor: decorative AND delicious! i really lucked out finding a groovy striped plastic table cloth in those colors which served as the backdrop to the table AND the table cloth (it was long).
we had pink and orange plates and cups from our birthday shindig, so i mixed in some new yellow ones, and some orange striped napkins. some of the plates even made their way into the decor as cellophane wrapped candies (see down a little further).
in my intensive, focused, scientific, party research phase i loved the jars of candy i was seeing at other people’s parties – but we will never eat three full jars of candy in 1000 years so that was just wasteful in our situation. my solution was to whip up some graphic faux candy! i printed out paper inserts for the jars and some paper lollipops too. these would be fun to do with your kiddo – get them involved in the preparation by stamping, drawing or painting some candy jar fillings!
we made up some plastic plate candies to stick around, some $2 paper lantern lollipops for the garden and helium baloons en masse in the party colors filled out ceiling space and were easy to do on the morning of the party.
~ Menu ~
fizzy lifting lemonade
everlasting bubblegum cordial
(if you’re in australia, cottee’s make “gubble bum” flavor cordial)
ice water
*
birthday cake flavor rice krispie treats
pretzels, chips, popcorn
mini candy bars
lots and lots of candies!
and i was instructed to make a “chocolate birthday cake, with chocolate frosting, and chocolate” to follow. i made just that! and i decorated it with smarties (candy covered chocolates like flatter m&ms) in the shape of a 5. this cake is kind of an homage to my own 5th birthday cake which my clever mama and grandmama made in the SHAPE of a FIVE, covered in smarties. it blew my tiny mind and i’ve never quite recovered.
i had every intention of also making a rainbow platter of fruits with honey yoghurt to dip, and vegetable crudité with hummus but a) i’m a chronic over-caterer and always feel wasteful after parties and b) what kid is going to eat veggies when there is a table full of candy?! we all know candy is a sometimes food, but parties are only sometimes events so i saved the fruit and veg for us to enjoy during the week. and i skipped the fairy bread too. i know, i’ll just give up my australian citizenship right now, huh? shame on me.
so there was candy for all, and sugar highs on the horizon. the only solution was to burn off some energy and distract the kids from grazing on the sugar by playing lots of fun games! here’s what we did, how we did it and what you need to do it yourself!
mike teevee’s tv quiz
think up 5-10 tv related questions your kid’s will be able to answer. give chocolate money prizes.
for example, we asked the 5 year olds:
“what color is oscar the grouch?”
“on the wiggles, what color shirt does jeff wear?”
“what type of animal is pingu?”
“on yo gabba gabba, who said they had a party in their tummy?”
“who can tell me the name of the island that thomas the tank engine lives on?”
charlie bucket’s bucket basketball
supplies:
baloons
a large bucket or tub
a lot of breath or a balloon pump
put the bucket up high; participants take turns shooting balloons into the bucket. whoever can dunk the most balloons wins.
veruca salt’s bad egg and spoon race
supplies:
eggs; real, plastic or chocolate depending on the age of participants
silver spoons or dumpling spoons (easier for little kids)
each participant gets a spoon balanced on an egg and they must make it around a race course without dropping their egg. no holding the eggs with your hands, though!
augusts gloop’s donut race
supplies:
mini donuts for each guest
a long stick, or broom handle
kitchen twine/string
using the kitchen twine, tie the mini donuts to the string, then tie the length of string attatched to the donut to the long stick. make sure they’re equally spaced leaving enough room for everyone to stand/eat comfortably.
to play, hold up the stick with the donuts hanging down and have the children put their hands behind their back. the first to eat all of the donut without using their hands wins!
violet beauregarde’s blueberry baloon bonanza
supplies:
blueberry colored balloons
small prizes you’ll be able to fit into un-inflated balloons eg: mini candy bars, small puzzles, whistles
fill blueberry colored balloons with small prizes then inflate them. get the kids to pop (squeeze, sit on) the blueberry bubbles to win their prize. have a push pin on standby for you to use in case your kiddos are too light to pop the balloons on their own.
to finish up with, i REALLY like party favor bags. its like having a little extra party after the party, so i tend to make a bit of extra effort to send home some fun treats. this year i got organized early and it paid off! i found handmade soaps (by sailormouth soaps on etsy) in the shape of frog candies, and i redeemed myself with the guest’s parents by finding a bunch of cute animal toothbrushes. packed up in gold bags with some bubble mix, and a couple of extra candies the favors made leaving the party a little less upsetting.
sure there are people who will say i’m probably spoiling my kid, but we ALL had fun – both father and son asked for the same party next year) and there’s only a few years you can be spoiled for. my mum threw fun parties for me so i like passing on those special memories to my son as its a way of keeping her fun spirit alive, but i think whatever effort you make for your children will be happily received and treasured.
maybe its the sugar talking, but i think i’d quite like to make parties happen for a living, so y’know… call me! who knows maybe we can have a pilgrim party blog.
