Party time!!!

Phew! That was hectic but oh so much fun! I’m proud and a bit relieved to say that the big party went off without a hitch. The kids ran wild and the adults could sit and relax and my little man...well I think he was glad when it was all over! He was very overwhelmed when he woke from a nap to find 50 people in his backyard, all wanting to touch, hug and talk to him all at once.

Birthday parties are so meaningful and special to me. I heard someone say that planning kid's parties were like writing a love letter to them. I love this thought and totally agree. You know what, I went completely over the top, did more than was necessary and loved every minute of it! There was love in every little project, every stitch, every smudge of icing

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I think the easiest way to show you my tips and tricks is to break up the party in to all the mini projects and try to explain how it all came together, so here goes. I hope this serves as inspiration to another Mumma.

I will also  split this blog into a few posts as I have been writing the draft for the Birthday Cake for over an hour now and I'm still not done lol!

The Theme

This was a no brainer as my little man is an eating machine and LOVES The Very Hungry Caterpillar book.

If you haven’t had a look through this book before...I highly recommend doing it. The pictures are simply stunning in their simplicity and complex in their details. Children love the simple storyline and adults understand the meaning. Its a perfect theme for little ones as they grow to be a butterfly.

The Invitations

My Hubbie is a Photoshop wiz, so I found a invitation on another blog and basically used it as a basis for ours. Hubbie formatted it a little differently and added pictures of our man in the caterpillar face. I would love to go into more detail as to how he did it, but I honestly have no idea!!! Thats his thing and I just let him go to it!! 

For obvious reasons our details are erased!

We also decided that we didn’t want a huge influx of Fisher Price hitting our already stuffed toy box in the lounge room. Instead we slipped a little note in with the invitations....

I just loved this idea and so did all the guests. We had the best time trawling through book stores and memories to find the perfect book.

I gave him The Jolly Barnyard. It’s a little Golden book but I remember loving it as a child. It cost all of $2.90 but means a great deal to me. Lulah gave him Mr Mc Gee and Hubbie passed on his well cherished copies of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

Now Logan has a huge library of really special books that he will cherish over the years. So so much better than plastic toys which won't last the year.

The Party Menu

I had to use a little imagination here, due to many factors. 

Money, seasons and practicality.

We decided to have an afternoon tea party at 2pm to cut the cost of having to feed everyone. I think this worked out well but then I was worried people were hungry on the way home. Hehe I can’t help myself!!!

So in the book the caterpillar eats;

One apple, Two Pears, Three Plums, Four Strawberries, Five Oranges, One chocolate cake, One Ice cream cone, One Pickle, One slice of swiss cheese, one slice of salami, One Lollipop, One piece of cherry pie, One sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon and a large green leaf.

So I made...

Cupcakes shaped like apples (didn’t want to serve apple slices as they would brown too quickly). I made these using heart shaped cupcake tray, icing with pink icing, adding a spearmint leaf and half a pretzel stick to decorate.

Swiss cheese triangle sandwiches on a bed of spinach leaves

Cupcakes

 Fruit platter with Pear, Orange and Watermelon

Chipolata Sausages

Mini Cupcakes iced with purple icing for the plums (Plums not in season)

Cherry Pies (found from a tiny local bakery)

Strawberries ( not in season and you don’t even want to know how much these cost!)

Also, cake which was the birthday cake

Ice cream cone were lollies (Coles brand-my favourite)

Salami and Swiss cheese triangle sandwiches served with pickles on toothpicks

Lollipops just were themselves

I also made fairy bread ( a MUST for any kids party!) and individual chocolate pudding cups that looked like dirt.

For these I made up chocolate pudding, poured into plastic cups, added crushed oreo cookies on top and added a gummy sour worm and few sprinkles for decoration.

The Party Favours

I put together two types of party favours- Butterflies and bubbles. The butterflies were decorated by cutting up Logan’s finger painting efforts. It took a bit of time to collect enough though, so if you are planning on making these, cross your fingers and hope your bub loves to fingerpaint  or prepare in advance lol!! I then cut two small marks to poke through a lolly pop and wrote “Thanks for coming to my party” on the back.

The bubbles were very simple. I just bought a big pack of bubbles from Woolies and printed out labels on the computer. To finish off, I stuck the labels on some gorgeous recycled paper  and strung them  on with gift wrapping string.

Ok, That's Part One Finished....Next Blog will have The Cake, The Games, The Decorations and The Clothes.

Time for a quick cuppa and some leftover cake before the Big fella wakes up x x x x