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 -
