Tag: Kids party

Kid’s Parties

Pizza Party

Sarah James-Wallace

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Last week I shared the invitations for Reuben’s pizza party and now I’m back to share the details of the party. I felt really blessed that coronavirus restrictions eased in time for us to have a group of up to twenty to celebrate. My parents were also able to join us (they brought up a load of grain they had sold to a local farmer), so the whole occasion felt very festive!

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Reuben loves pizza, so this theme was really fitting to celebrate his eleventh birthday. He’s growing too old for cutesy party food and decorations, so I had to restrain myself a little! I went for an Italian themed table with the ubiquitous red and white checked tablecloth and candle in an old wine bottle. I also used some Italian placemats I made from an old calendar. The food was fairly simple, as pizza was the star of the show! We had fruit pizza, bocconcini, basil and tomato kebabs, lolly kebabs and a chocolate cake made to look like a pizza with various toppings.

I made the dough for the pizzas the day before the party and left it in the fridge to rise overnight. I chopped up lots of toppings and each guest rolled out their dough and created their own pizza masterpiece, which Murray cooked outside in our portable pizza oven. This was a great activity for this age group, but quite intense, hence unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the pizza making or cooking.

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I used a garland I had made for Reuben’s seventh birthday party from fabric scraps as a decoration and added in some free pizza printables I found on Pinterest. This was one of my favourite parties. The boys were so lovely and enjoyed pizza making, a game of spotlight and a few games on the Nintendo Switch.

Are your kids getting too old for themed birthday parties or do they still love them?

 

 

 

Kid’s Parties

Parisian Pâtisserie

Sarah James-Wallace

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I’ve got to say that this theme has to be one of my favourites. I studied French at school and university and have long been a bit of a Francophile! Parisian parties were really trending a few years ago, but have gone off the boil now, so there wasn’t much party ware around. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to find some props from around my house and my local party hire shop had some Eiffel Tower cutouts to complete the scene. I decided to go for a more Provincial look, rather than the classic pink and black associated with Paris.

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You only turn nine once and what a way to celebrate! When planning the party, I came up with the idea to turn the space into a pretend cafe complete with menus and table service. My eldest daughter, Portia was a lovely waitress and Murray dressed up in his tuxedo and played the part of a hilarious French waiter with many amusing facial expressions. The girls thought he was an absolute hoot and loved ordering from the menu even though the waiter’s accent was a little hard to understand!

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A few weeks prior to the party I started to make an apron for each guest from some oilcloth I had leftover from my Mexican themed 40th birthday party. I had a lot of issues with the bias binding around these, so was kind of regretting my decision, but once I’d made a few I felt as if I had to keep going. It was a relief to finish the last one! The girls looked amazing in their aprons and they were fun to wear for the cooking we did together at the party (Madeleines) and the cupcake decorating competition.

I raided my cake decorating stash and placed lots of toppings out for the girls to decorate with. They were very creative! On the menu for the party were the following French delights : homemade chocolate eclairs, chocolate mousse, pain au chocolate, cupcakes and of course macarons.

To decorate the space I used a cardboard booth from Ikea I have had for years with some croissant decorations I added hanging from the top. I was excited to find the croissant Christmas decorations in the discount bin at Myer for only 50c each last time I was in the city.  I also decorated Harriet’s bike with some flowers and used an old ladder I bought from an antique fair to hold my collection of French props.

The party bags were paper bags I had at home embellished with paper doilies and free printables from here and here. Harriet is not a cake lover, so requested a chocolate smash cake instead. I had to have two attempts to achieve success! My first attempt with a pudding basin was not successful, so I recommend using a china bowl instead if you wish to make one. It certainly was a lot of fun for the birthday girl to bash her way through with a hammer and I’m happy with the way it turned out, looking almost like a French bonnet!
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I’ll leave you with a photo of the after party wreckage. A great time was had by all!

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Kid’s Parties

Parisian Party

Sarah James-Wallace

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It seems a bit frivolous to write about a Parisian party at a time when the world is battling COVID-19, but I guess we all need a few distractions to get us through this time.

I’ll write about all the party details in my next post, but today I’m sharing the details of the invitations. I really wanted to have a cooking party and Harriet was set on a French theme, so I decided to combine the two to have a French patisserie party.

I used this tutorial to make the whisks pictured. For the written invitation I used some photocopies from Harriet’s picture books about Paris and glued them onto shipping tags with some stickers and embellishments I had left over from my brief flirtation with scrapbooking. I was really happy with the way they turned out and the kids loved them too!

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Hope is really important in tough times like we’re experiencing at the moment. The Psalms are really comforting to read in times of trouble.  Praying Psalm 91 over my family at the moment:

Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Kid’s Parties

Breakfast Party Invitations

Sarah James-Wallace

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I accidentally omitted the invitation details from my last blog post about Portia’s Breakfast Party, so here they are!

I really wanted to do something creative for the invite, with little individual boxes of cereal (with a decorated luggage label attached with the party details on it).  However, believe it or not, the boxes were discontinued and replaced with packets only four months prior to the party! I couldn’t find them anywhere for love or money.

So, instead of using the boxes, Portia created an invite on her iPad, which we placed in an envelope with the cereal packet tied on top with some bakers twine. We topped it off with a bamboo spoon inserted through a doughnut printable from Oh Happy Day. The girls loved them – easy, but cute!

Kid’s Parties

Breakfast Party

Sarah James-Wallace

50532B20-6452-4F12-A347-DF02C3819558 Recently we celebrated Portia’s thirteenth birthday with a breakfast party. She loves breakfast food, so this was a fun idea and quite simple to put together. Portia also loves pastels, so I used this for the styling theme.

On the menu was bacon, three types of breakfast cereals (the sugary kind usually forbidden in our house), waffles with maple syrup, whipped cream, berries, choc chips and chocolate, caramel and blueberry sauces for toppings. There was also a DIY station to make smoothie bowls with lots of different toppings. The smoothie contained frozen cherries, bananas and coconut yoghurt blended up together. The girls had a lot of fun making their own concoctions.

For drinks, we had two different kinds of homemade lemonade infused with crushed strawberries and puréed watermelon and mint respectively. I was excited to find the recipe for the cake on the Sugar and Sparrow website (link here). It’s a milk and cereal cake containing crushed cereal, icing made with cereal infused milk and topped off with a milk splash. What could be more appropriate for a breakfast party!

B6BE10E7-6AC8-4C2A-9A8F-BFF103D25AC6 I love the styling aspect of a party, as each time I get to use some ideas from my Pinterest board. This time my girls and I painted some jars on the inside with pretty pastel colours to use as vases. I also enjoyed making a hanging flower wall as a backdrop with some washi tape. Both were very simple projects which looked effective.

For the table I used a white tablecloth as a base, overlayed with a pastel vintage tablecloth I found in an op shop. Target had some lovely pastel paper plates, cups and napkins, which I combined with some of my mismatched collection of vintage china. I reused some doilies I had dyed for the Mad Hatter Teaparty for the centre of the table, along with some tea lights. The roses were from my garden.

This was the most grownup I had ever seen this peer group at a party (I guess they really are young adults now)!  Instead of tearing about the place they were happy to chat, make some milk bath (recipe here) and play scattergories and twister. All too soon the party was over and it was time for the girls to go home. The party bags were a labour of love this time! I sewed each one using this great tutorial. I hadn’t put in any zips since home economics at school, so I was really pleased with how they turned out!

Do you love to eat breakfast foods at any time of the day like we do?

Kid’s Parties

Every dog has it’s day . . .

Sarah James-Wallace

C0D56D3B-B8D5-4A36-BB44-33F086DBA7EENot a day in this case, but a party! My daughter, Portia has a very cheeky dog called Popcorn who she adores, so her birthday party last year was a celebration of all things dogs. Popcorn even had a look in on the celebrations!  It was a quick party to pull together – I was very busy at the time, so this was a real bonus. For invitations we used a photo of Popcorn. I made some cupcakes (some with Oreo and smartie dog paws on them), and also used some dog toys I got from the Reject Shop as cupcake toppers. The cake was a rosewater vanilla layer cake (recipe here), topped with some dog figurines (one with a custom made party hat). I added some nasturtium leaves on the front.

DB0C40AE-ECEC-43B0-9CB4-1B015B153A35The food was simple to put together and fun to label. I used free food label printables from here. We had pupcorn, dogs in blankets, puppy chow (chocolate treats that look like dog food served in a dog food bowl), a water bowl (which was blue jelly) and a yoghurt parfait bar. The drink was puppacinos!

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I used a length of fabric with dogs on it as a table runner and all Portia’s dog toys (being such a dog lover, she’s amassed a few) as table decorations. I was also able to locate some paper napkins with dogs on them.

D326627F-5A24-48B4-B853-05E20DAE3F35The girls played guess the amount of dog treats in the jar and also went on a treasure hunt with Popcorn in tow around our neighbourhood. I think I had as much fun as the girls, thinking up rhyming clues and leaving them at locations for them to find. The clues led back to a treasure chest which contained a lip balm for each guest and was hidden in our tree house. The treasure hunt was inspired by the ones Mum prepared for my parties growing up on the farm. They were the best! Would still love to go on another one of those treasure hunts, even as an adult.

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The clues

The girls took home favour boxes containing a stuffed dog each, which I sourced on sale from KMart. The girls had a blast, as did Popcorn!

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Popcorn the party dog!
Kid’s Parties

Pamper Party

Sarah James-Wallace

510206A2-F838-470F-B6AE-7F170FE0737DHarriet recently turned eight and we celebrated with a spa party! The inspiration for this came from some sleep masks I was gifted by a friend several years ago, which I used for the invitations. I used a free printable from here and attached it to the mask with a fancy pin. I also searched online for some printables of cucumber slices to decorate the envelopes.

4E8BF2FB-D6B3-407B-825A-5D5A58F13ED5This was a fun party to put together! I borrowed three foot spas for the girls to enjoy and also an essential oil diffuser to create a special atmosphere. I kept the beauty treatments simple with just some face masks and nail polish for manicures. We also made some lip balm with jelly crystals, petroleum jelly and coconut oil at the party. The girls decorated tiny pots I bought from a discount store to put the lip balm in. This was a popular activity! The lip balm recipe can be found here.

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At first I was a bit stuck for inspiration for the decor and colour themes for this party. I wasn’t sure whether to go for a tropical theme, an eco spa theme or something girly and pretty. In the end it was a fusion of all three styles with tropical influences for the food. I loved the way it all worked out and was glad to be able to use my husband’s beautiful Valentine’s Day bouquet of flowers for the table.  I hung some pink tissue paper flowers I’ve had for years around the room and some pinecone wreaths my Mum made for Christmas one year over the table. Some relaxing spa music was playing in the background to set the scene!

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Planning and making the food is probably my favourite part of a party. I used some old issues of Donna Hay Kids’ Magazine (great for party planning) for inspiration. I made mango jelly topped with banana and passion fruit, coconut ice cut into flower shapes, cupcakes with sugar flower leis, kiwi fruit flowers topped with raspberries, sausage rolls, mango coconut smoothies, watermelon fries with coconut lime dip (recipe here) and orange creamsicle yogurt bites from here.  All very delicious! The cake was a frangipani (reminiscent of a tropical day spa). I also placed some frangipani flowers in the foot spa water.

16ABA4E5-B8CE-4111-AE7A-73AC51316049Lastly, but not least, the favour bags consisted of lip balm wrapped up in a homemade scrunchie which I enjoyed making on my sewing machine. The girls went home refreshed and pampered after a long week at school!

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