birthdays

we have a big boy birthday coming up, and i had to post a picture of these which i found whilst wasting way too much time on pinterest! They made me laugh out loud, they also made me sad that we don't seem to have Sesame Street on Tv anymore, how are a whole generation going to grow up without counting with the Count, or without knowing Burt  and Ernie or Big Bird? anyway for all of you sesame st nostalgia lovers how about cookie monster cupcakes for tea!!!!

flower power

Last week I did something I didn't ever think I would do! After the debacle of snow cutting short Baby's Teddy Bear's tea party last year I decided to avoid entertaining at home for her 3rd birthday party. The problem is that there is not a huge choice of venues for toddlers parties in the middle of winter so I ended up apologising to the mum's as I invited 9 little girls to join baby at a soft play centre. However I do have to eat my hat slightly as, of course, the girls all loved it and it was so easy to organise.

Me being me I did have to have a few homemade touches though. Rather than use the invites provided I made my own. Baby wanted a princess pink party so I blew up a load of pink balloons, made some princess hats for them to wear whilst eating their party lunch, of course there were princess pink fairy cakes and I sent them all home with a flower lollipop. These lollipops were a huge success, even before the children realised that they were actually edible. I've been wanting to make them ever since I saw them in a Martha Stewart Kids Craft book Sarah brought me back from the US ages ago



To make them yourself:

Cover the lollipop in paper

Cut out 4 heart shaped petals (roughly 2 inches x 1 inch) and punch a hole in the V of each heart

Push the lollipop sticks through the holes and arrange the petals and glue them in place

High School Musical

One of the problems of having children is that some times they want something so much you just have to cave in! This is what happened when our little girl turned 5 recently. She desperately wanted a High School Musical Movie party. I couldn't say 'No'.


I love a good theme and decided to go down the Stars and Stripes route. I like to have an activity underway when the children arrive to get them involved and help them to forget about their parents leaving them. So I'd cut up strips of crepe paper which the children put into bundles and made into pom poms, which they danced with during the film.


We put up a large screen with surround sound and created bill boards and a ticket office using some cardboard, painted red, and studded with fairy lights and as each child arrived they were given a ticket.


An intermission gave the opportunity to serve the birthday tea, which was literally hot dogs and by apples from the garden, much to the children's disappointment. Then we produced these American Style cup cakes (which Boy and I had spent the night before creating). They also each got an ice cream during the second half of the film (no wonder some of them couldn't sit still!).


They were all sent home with the obligatory party bag. I always go overboard with the cellophane, I figure the contents are largely irrelevant. But, since my guys are really into badges at the moment, I made each child their own shaker style name badge for that personal touch.

And bags of pop corn, of course!

teddy bears picnic

Baby was 2 on Sunday and somehow in the post Christmas and New Year week I managed to organise her a party. I had to come up with a theme that was easy to sort out last minute and that would be appropriate for little ones - hence the teddy bears picnic. Although it was indoors it was cut short due to the sudden arrival of a lot of snow! Something most of you are probably very familiar with at the moment.


At the demand of the older siblings we tried a few party games, including pass the parcel but they were best entertained by the arrival of the picnic rug (a rather large red & white checked table cloth). Firstly we threw loads of teddy bears on top, took the sides of the cloth and bounced the teddies around, to much hilarity. Then they got bored of that and all crawled underneath the rug and played around in that for a while before the picnic hamper arrived with their lunch. I had made individual bags, stamped with a red bear, containing teddy bear crisps and teddy shaped sandwiches wrapped in baking paper and string.


Then it was back to the old party bag issue. Whilst I knew the younger ones wouldn't know any better I had to meet the older ones expectations too. I bought a bumper pack of crayons, divided them up and tied them together with red gingham.

Quickly machine sewed some pieces of paper together to make little drawing pads.


Then put some party biscuits in a clear bag with some paper doyley (I have to confess I was really chuffed with the way these came out).

These were all put into a white paper bags which were stitched together with a little name tag.

As always, I totally forgot to give out the balloons as everyone left. I hate that I always do this and end up with 15 part shrivelled balloons lying around the house for days on end. But what I did discover was that it is possible to use rubber stamps on them (before inflating). So, for what it's worth I did have teddy bear balloons too.

the great party bag debate

It's a busy time for Sarah and me as our first borns reach their 6th birthday this weekend. Normally I relish the opportunity to go mad and organise a birthday party but this year the idea of a number of over excited boys exerting their energy in our house, fuelled by sugar, filled me with dread and we negotiated a birthday treat instead.

This involved a trip to the cinema with 4 friends followed by a Happy Meal. It was easy and Macdonalds were even doing Fantastic Mr Fox meals to tie in with the film we had chosen to watch. I even thought I would get away without having to do the dreaded party bags.... until I was told otherwise.

But then I found I was actually slightly relieved. While I loathe the plastic bags sent home with squished cake in grubby napkin and bits of pointless plastic which end up in the baby's mouth I realised that I do like the opportunity to be creative. So I dashed off, bought a few sweets, and made these little, pink, (but I had no complaints from the boys) bags. I also found these fab cup cakes in Waitrose which they devoured in Maccy D's post Happy Meal, meaning the whole event came to a sticky end. But not in my house.

But, is a pretty bag of sweets really any better than a bag of plastic tat?

ice cream extravaganza

Our little girl celebrated her 4th birthday with an ice cream extravaganza yesterday. We stuck to some good old fashioned party games before sitting the children down to hot dogs (easy) followed by the all important ice cream.


I used plastic champagne flutes (thankfully much smaller than real sundae glasses) which I filled with umbrellas, flags and tissue paper and pipe cleaner for each child to make their own tropical flower* whilst they were waiting for the ice cream to be scooped out.

The birthday cake was a giant pink meringue. Once the candles were blown out it was smashed to pieces and added to the selection of sweets and fruit that were put out for the children to decorate with.



I'm not a huge fan of party bags so I always try and do something slightly different. Boy was given the important job of handing out ice cream tubs filled with ice cream shaped sweets and a bright coloured plastic spoon wrapped up in good old cellophane as everyone left.



*Tropical flowers: are really easy to make and can be used to create fantastic garlands or, as in this case, to quickly entertain the children whilst something boring is going on. Get 2 pieces of tissue paper and cut both into a figure of eight. Place one piece of tissue across the other creating a quatre foil. Stick the pipe cleaner in the middle and twist in the centre. Manipulate pipe cleaners to look like stamen.

teddy bear's tea party

And when I wasn't creating for myself I was creating for the children. A sudden heavy downpour of rain meant games in the garden were ended abruptly and found the children wanting. Out came tissue paper, scissors and sellotape and 5 minutes of my time meant we had party hats for teddy bears. That led to a teddy bear's tea party that kept the children entertained for long enough for me to finish those baby cards!

cheeky chimp party

a fun filled time was had by all in our house yesterday, when our littlest turned 2. He loves monkeys so we chose a cheeky chimp theme. Unfortunately due to my big workload this week with the website going live, I didn't get to make the monkey bunting that I was planing! However I was rather pleased with my party bags. I have an aversion to party bag tat which parents feel obliged to spend a small fortune on. I always find I am trying to remove bits of a plastic hooter or suchlike from the inner workings of my vacuum cleaner 2 days after a party. So with this in mind all of the children went home with a helium balloon with a packet of 'monkey munch' tied to the ribbon to act as a weight. we had cupcakes decorated with strawberries and banana chips instead of a big cake, which were much easier for little hands.