Tickled Pink Party

Our darling Badoo turns three tomorrow and yesterday was her first ever 'big' birthday party. While I admit that I'm a little pinked-out, her choice of a 'pink' party was really a match made in heaven for me. 

Dear readers, forgive me the lengthy details, but this is one party I want to remember... I'll understand if you skim read!

'Pink' is such a creative yet easy theme to decorate for. I like to make my own decorations, but I don't like spending a lot of money to do so. I prefer to spend party money on little extravagances like entertainers or monsters or costumes.

So I had a ball creating a pink fairyland scene that cost me virtually nothing.

I used a Martha Stewart tutorial to make the flowers which used paper bags but I wanted a gingham effect and couldn't source any bags. So, I just colour printed decorative paper, folded the sides in and stuck them together with sticky-tape (like a tube), made the necessary gusset folds on the sides and, voila! Once I had my own 'bags', I then just did what Martha told me. The best bit was that by making my own bags I could make different shaped flowers by changing the size of the folds I made.

I even made pockets for the cushions on our daybeds, just so they could be part of the theme. Now, I think we all know by now that I'm a bit of a control freak, so being 'part of the theme' is pretty much essential. The aesthetician (aesthelete!?) in me loves to style and plan parties down to the sweet detail and it's all I can do not to shout 'places everyone!' when party time comes around. My family is very patient with me.

So, even though I can't sew to save myself, I was absolutely determined to cover the blue cushions on my daybeds pink. So I made 'pockets' and pockets only require a straight stitch down two sides. I would have Buckleys of doing a zip or button or anything fancy like that. 

I then used the left-over fabric and pinking shears to make the pretty 'bow' garlands. The fairy bunting  is just paper cut outs stapled onto pink bias-binding that I bought for $2 at the $2 shop (!).

It's difficult to know whether to make 'party day' the day that you do all the celebrating, or hold off to do more on the child's actual birthday. At our place, we just make party day the day and so the Badoo started the morning off with a 'happy birthday' and a pile of presents from her family. Spurred on by the fun of gift-giving, all morning Cappers and Maxi-Taxi were making her little drawings and things as 'extra presents' - do your children do that too?

In the pic above, the Badoo is wearing a t-shirt that my bloggy friend Kasia custom made for her after I won a giveaway on her blog. The shirt is the softest cotton you can imagine and the Badoo was very proud of herself in her '3' shirt. Great birthday gift for any little one, don't you think?

When it was party time, two sweet fairies arrived to take the children on a magical journey to fairyland. It was a relief not to be 'the show' for this party - all the games and entertaining was done by the fairies. They were picture-perfect and absolutely wonderful with the children. 

We used Fairy Crystal and Friends and I'm giving Christina a shout-out because we also used her fairies for Cappers' third birthday (it's become a tradition for our girls - thank goodness I only have the 2!). Christina has delivered a creative, magical experience both times now. I hope you understand what I mean when I say that aside from their skills at keeping sugar-hyped children amused for hours, the wholesome prettiness and quality presentation of the fairy is absolutely essential in these matters and Christina's fairies are stunning down to the very last detail. They were captivating, even for us grown-ups.

They limboed and danced and blew bubbles and sang and told stories and face painted and passed a parcel... even the older boys were mesmerised (although they claimed to be above it all, they actually didn't leave the fairies' sides all day).

The pink themed food was so much fun to make. Generally party food gets the better of me because I don't plan ahead. But this time, with my newly donated extra fridge and freezer space (thanks Gran and Pops!), I was on Easy Street. The Badoo and I baked everything over the past couple of Wednesdays (my day off from work) and froze them ready to be iced. I can't believe what a difference that made to the smoothness of the day and the quality of the cakes didn't seem to be compromised.

Coconut ice, pretty cupcakes with a variety of toppings, little choc-dipped wands, rosy meringues and lurid pink cake pops which were a huge lurid pink mess and I swear I am never making the darn things again.

We made 'pink milk' and poured it into Yoga bottles that I'd removed the labels from (canny eyes will recognise that these are the same 'butter beer' bottles from the Harry party!). Soaking bottles in hot water with a bit of eucalyptus oil makes the job quick and easy. I then just use plain old UHU blue to glue on the labels. To keep track of the drinks, I made name labels by cutting a heart shape out of left-over bunting paper and making two cuts for the straw to slide through.

After scrapping plans to make a Peppa Pig cake (beyond me, I'm no baker!), I just made a standard cake and used the sleight-of-hand of marshmallowy goodness to fool everyone into thinking it was fancy. The pretty little flowers were in the cake aisle at Woolies - who knew? It was a huge hit and absolutely no trouble.

All in all, that wonderful little Badoo and all her friends had a fantastic day and her Mumma did too. Happy Pink Party to us and Happy Birthday my sweetheart! 

May your year ahead be cherished one and may you continue to be that certain cheeky, loving handful that we admire so much.

- The (very pink) end - 

Harry Potter party for Maxi-Taxi

Whoa, Nellie! Happy Mother's Day to me (and to you too, if you're a mumma). I've spent the day cleaning up after Maxi-Taxi's 7th birthday party yesterday. My sister-in-law Lucia, LOML and I went Harry Potter mad and had a fabulous time at Hogwart's schooling 10 little Harrys and 4 Princess Harryettes.

The invitation to attend Hogwart's school of Witchcraft and Wizardry was despatched by owl delivery.

The students arrived at Hogwart's Castle and were requested to knock three times to be considered for entry.

Once their name was checked off the roll, they were invited to change into their uniforms.

And sign up for the House Competition and Potions Class.

The Sorting Hat decided who would be a Gryffindor, a Slytherin, a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw. None of the Harrys wanted to be in Gryffindor so it was decided the Harryettes would be the snakes. Each student received a house badge to wear on their robe.

Then it was time for the house competition. It was a treasure hunt race to see who could find the quidditch snitch first. Each team had a different set of clues that sent them on a hunt all around the house and garden.

Gryffindor stumbled on their final questions, mistaking the white wishing chair on the front verandah for the lounging lizard chairs on the back verandah (it's a common mistake). Their error cost them the snitch and they limped home in fourth place. The medals went to the Ravenclaw boys in first place followed by the lovely Slytherin girls and the Hufflepuffs in third place.

After the excitement of the competition and a bit of mad free play involving rock climbing in the Forbidden Forest...

... it was time to use their wands to burst the floating bubbles...

... followed by a flying lesson on the trampoline.

A refreshing drink of Butter Beer saw everyone ready to settle down for class where Professor Lucia taught them all how to make their own Minstry of Magic memo owls.

Then it was over to the chocolate fountain to coat breadstick wands with chocolate and dip them into cauldron pots of surprise sprinkles. The wands were washed down with a magic potion drink (two drops of food colouring dried on the bottom of the glass, covered in ice, lemonade turns coloured in the glass!).

Following dinner of Oozy Parcels (sausage rolls) and Goblins Fingers (mini-hot dogs with tomato sauce), we hit the dessert table for the real food!

Hedwig Owl Pops (raspberry cake pops decorated as owls)

Dragons Eggs (left-over easter eggs!)

Quidditch Balls (cheezels)

Goblins Boogers (popcorn)

Wizards Hats (cakes with mini-ice cream cones filled with marshmallows)

and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (jelly beans).

Stuffed to the tips of our wizards hats, we settled in for Professor Moody's Potions Class.

Professor Moody showed us an amazing dragon's egg that was lit red from within, a volcano in a bottle explosion, a breathe capture and firework's in a jar. We cracked open some glo-sticks and danced around while the volcano exploded.

The sparkler-ladden cake made it's entrance and Maxi barely got a look in as the candles were blown out by his over-excited friends just as the final school bell sounded.

Hogwart's lessons were over for the day, which was just as well as the Professors were absolutely exhausted!

Lessons learnt: 

1. You can never have too much fun at a child's party. 

2. You can never have too much fun preparing for one either. 

3. But, oh no, the clean up! And the sore feet! And the sheer exhaustion! Argh!

xxx Happy Birthday, my sweet Harry xxx

♥ Mermaidia Magic

The Cappers is five! We celebrated with a Mermaid (and Pirates) party yesterday. 

I made the Martha tissue pom poms as promised. They were both easier (it's a simple thing to do) and harder (it's fiddly) than I thought. But the end result was very festive and presentable enough (don't look too closely!)

I added some seaweed and little fish streamers... very weedy.

These little 'ice creams' were a huge hit... marshmallows in the base, chocolate crackle top, dipped in white chocolate and sprinkles on the top... as yummy as it sounds!

Because the ice creams were hard-core sugar, I made wholemeal raspberry muffins instead of cupcakes and made them more festive with a mermaid cake topper (printed out a pic, cut out the circle, stuck them on a toothpick). Marshmallow and strawberry kebabs (Cappers enjoyed putting these together as I made the cake).

And, of course, the cake. My first time working with fondant icing and it was... sticky. 2am and I'm covered in fondant icing. I found it really, really hard to add colouring. The more you kneaded to try to spread the colour, the sticker things got. Even a quick zap in the fridge would only give me a few more kneads at a time. Any hints?

We went on a submarine adventure through the ocean - what can we see? What's happening out there? Quick, run from the shark! Totally impromptu, but they absolutely loved it. Another thing - forget about toy prizes, medals for winners were the best thing ever.

I made mermaid costumes for the girls (fabrics, hot glue gun, lei, wand and sticky face jewels, hello). Little girls just love it when they all look the same... something in that...

Random photo showing off The Badoo and her pirate cousin Mr 3.

The boys' pirate costumes came from the $2 shop and were... $2. The pirates enjoyed harassing the mermaids immensely.

It was a fabulous day and Cappers loved it. I was so proud of my little girl when she was prompted as to what her birthday wish was and she looked around at everyone and said "I love my friends". Yes, that's what it's all about, my lovely. Happy happy birthday. 

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My party inspiration and mermaid picture for decorations came from Living Locurto.

And because I never do anything even half as exciting as this in "My Creative Space" "At My House", I'm linking up at Buttons by Lou Lou's on Monday and Kootoyoo's on Thursday this week. I'm a long time listener, first time caller on both these fabulous memes.

I'm also linking up (as always) with Anna's Much Love Monday. I love it over there.

Could this be the most memed post ever? Talk about flogging the horse!!