Princess Tea Party

So last year we put on a cool beach party for my daughter's birthday, but this year we could no longer avoid the requests for a princess party. The very thought made me feel somewhat queasy, all that pink how would we cope? In the end I just decided to embrace it in the hope that next year my daughter will have moved on, and besides you can't have the same theme twice can you?!

The Invitations

As our little princesses were being invited over for tea I made some personalised tea bags with my new best purchase - the retro embossing label maker with pink neon tape. Then I cut out some tea pots and cobbled together some bright invitations.

The Games

Find the Frog Prince - we hid lots of frogs around the garden. The girls had to collect them and put them in the pond (aka paddling pool). One of the frogs had stars on his cheeks - he was the real prince.

Pin the Princess on the Fairytale Castle - girls love dressing up games so I thought they would like to put together a bespoke princess which they could then use for the pin the princess on the castle game. At the end of the party they could also take home their completed princesses. My husband even knocked up a fantastic card castle! This game was a real hit - although there were some minor princess moments as to who had which hairdo for their princess stick...

Make a Crown - I bought some craft kits with foam crowns and gems for the girls to decorate and they all got stuck in and wore them for the rest of the party. Of course they could also take these home afterwards.

The Cake

It had to be a princess dress complete with pearl waistband, jewels (fondant icing rolled in edible glitter), and piped buttercream roses.

Cardboard Bird House

Monday morning really should have been taken up with washing and recycling but when faced with a large pile of card accumulated over the weekend I decided to take a leaf out of my daughter's book and recycle some of it into something fun.

And here is the result, a bird house for our under stairs shop, which we've named the West Wing:)

Return of the Wheelie Whale

Today I paid another trip to Squeegee & Ink to release some creative energy. This time my wheelie whale got the screen printing treatment!

Screen ready for printing layers

Now which colour?

HELLO WHEELIE WHALE

Tightrope Toucan

Today was wet, windy and downright miserable. The fact that the clocks were changing had totally passed us by so we woke up in a sleep deprived confused blur, but nothing could dampen my spirit as I was taking the day off! 

Destination 'Squeegee & Ink' http://www.squeegeeandink.com/ in Newbury for a screen printing workshop.

If you've ever seen your child's face light up listening to the honking drones of the toucan saxophonist in In The Night Garden you will understand why I thought my daughter would love a 'T' themed toucan picture. 

The Studio Manager Chessie was a fantastic tutor and really helped me convert my drawing of a tightrope walking toucan (in the twilight) into a layered image in Illustrator. The image was then converted into black segments and printed onto a clear film ready for all the clever light exposure jiggery-pokery. Then paint, squeegee, go. Well really not quite that simple but you get the idea! 

So blue or pink moon, which one to choose? 

Children's Room 'W' Print - Wheelie Whale

Finally I caved into the bare walls screaming at me to put something up in my son's room. After his whale themed christening I decided to carry on with the theme and came up with a whale doing a wheelie over a 'W' of course! 

I used washi tape for the whale and card stock for the 'W'. The bike is hand drawn with pen. Simples:)

Snails, Whales and Wise Words

We all love seeing friends and families at christenings (they are not just an excuse for a party though are they ahem?!). 

Question is when your baby is mostly asleep or slurping milk on the big day how do you ensure he/she remembers his/her big day?

We decided to put a box of blank cards out and invited our guests to share their words of wisdom. We pegged all the cards up in the garden. It was great to see the advice that three generations of friends and family gave...

Over in the cake camp we plumped for a Snail and the Whale theme, cue whale cupcakes and whale & snail cake. There were lots of happy smurf blue mouths at the end of the day.

Beach Party In Your Garden

Everyone loves a beach party but when you just can't face the drive why not bring the beach to your garden? We decided on a beach theme for our daughter's birthday. 

First off the decorations - there's nothing like roping your children in to help. We made coffee carrier carton jellyfish with googly eyes and crepe paper, fish plates and finally a giant surfboard (ok so I did this one after the little ones had gone to bed). I also put out leis for everyone to help themselves to.

Party Food ...

Sailboat Jellies

Make your own jelly to get the right colour. I wanted a yellow beach layer (which I filled with sprinkles to act as rocks) and blue ocean layer - but in the end the sea was a more murky green as no matter how much I left the yellow layer to set the colouring tinted my blue jelly when I poured it on top of the 'beach'. I used satsuma segments and washi tape on cocktail sticks for the sails (of course letting children know not to eat the sticks!)

Watermelon Whale

This was quite simple to carve and fill with a fruit salad (word of warning the watermelon whale is too big for most UK fridges so I wouldn't prepare this until the day) - I had to go to a local exotic fruit market for the right sized watermelon as you'd be hard pushed to find one in your local supermarket. Prepare to get messy - use a large bowl to scoop out all the watermelon.

Not Forgetting that Cake!

Sandcastle Cake

I had great fun making this - I baked four small Victoria sponges, stacked them on top of each other with alternating layers of buttercream and raspberry jam and then secured in place with a kebab skewer whilst I worked on spreading buttercream around the outside. Next I rolled the digestives out with a rolling pin and then rolled the whole cake in the biscuits.

For the decorations I baked star shaped biscuits and adjusted the shape before cooking so that they looked more like starfish. I used shell moulds to make white chocolate shell decorations and the flags I printed at home to match the party invitations. 

Games

Controversially I ditched pass the parcel (I did have one child ask when we were going to do it!) and instead we had a fishing game, find the shell, and musical statues which all hit the mark with the young age group.

I made the fish from card and paper fasteners which worked with the horseshoe magnet I put on the end of some string on a bamboo cane (decorated with more crepe paper).