'Tis done.
My post is a bit late because I needed a couple of days to recover after the hoopla, the craziness, the extravaganza that was... Cappers' rainbow birthday party. You know I like to go on a bit when I'm describing my parties, so do grab a cup of tea, settle in and prepare for lots and lots of
colour!
After all the preparations are done and the
ideas are sprung, it's important to create an entrance for any party. You want to build the excitement as guests get closer. I think a balloon on the mailbox is great for directions, but add a few streamers and it becomes a fluttery, hello of a welcome (not that this picture does it any justice whatsoever... my lack of photo skills are really letting me down now that I'm blogging. Do you ever find that too!?). I also put streamers along the walk up to our house and a welcome sign at the top of the stairs. Little guests saying 'wow' before they even hit the front step is a really great feeling.
I decorated with streamers strung from one side of the room to the other with balloons and coloured fabric bringing the colours to life. The 'chandeliers' are just ribbon glued onto two embroidery hoops. I made the wands from a wooden chopstick and ribbon stuck onto cardboard, a little bit of wadding between the card and the printed cloud paper top and my trusty hot glue gun. The garland is from
Down to the Woods.
The food was simple and fuss free. Skewers of 'rainbow' fruit, marshmallows, coloured popcorn, lollies of every rainbow colour, hundreds and thousands cupcakes (banana and chocolate), coloured meringues and jelly cups with each colour of the rainbow in a stripe. Having an afternoon party means the pressure to provide a proper hot meal is gone. Bring on the sugar!
A water bottle for each child with a personalised label. These are the easiest things to do and the kids love them.
And yes, I made '
that cake'. It was actually very simple in the end and I was very proud of our (my trusty sidekick, Zia Lucia and I) efforts. The children were absolutely fascinated and can you believe the entire cake was gone by the end of the day (we did 'back to back' parties with the rainbow party finishing at 4pm and LOML's birthday dinner BBQ for 16 adults and 14 children starting at 6pm... oh. my. god. was I a tired woman when I finally crawled into bed at 1.30am!!!)
For all the fun of decorating and baking, a children's party is nothing without some great fun, creative game play. Creating a story around the party theme is what I enjoy the most and planning the activities to suit is wonderful.
What to do with little guests when everyone is arriving? If you let them get too nuts, you just never get them settled and they are over excited and rather mental for the whole party. I decided that a colouring competition would be the perfect start; it was up to the children if they wanted to participate but just about everyone took to it with great enthusiasm. They all settled straight in, working hard on their entries and finished works were pinned on the wall for all to admire and a prize for the winner at the end of the party. Warning: do not try this with boys...
Once everyone arrived it was time for a game of musical cushions. I love this game and it's always a lot of fun for the kids.
Next up we played pin the pot of gold on the end of the rainbow. I printed out a rainbow picture onto two sheets of A3 paper and taped them together. Then I printed and cut out a little cauldron for each guest. Blu tac on the back of the cauldron, a headband for a 'mask' and away we go! Lots and lots of laughs for not much effort at all.
I've avoided having a pass the parcel at parties up until this point. I hate how you have to have a prize for each kid these days and the painstaking stopping of the music at the required child... boooooring. But Cappers insisted, so I used tissue paper so each layer was a new colour, put little lollies in some layers and a more important prize in others and away we went. It was Ho Humsville if you ask me, it just went on and on with our music choice of 'Rainbow Connection' bleating along in the background with that bloody ukelele making it seem like some weird Deliverance moment. The kids really enjoyed it. See, look how much that little girl in orange up there is enjoying it... Ho Hum indeed.
Time to shake things up after the whole pass the parcel snooze, so a treasure hunting we went. I printed out a story with clues, each onto a different rainbow-coloured piece of paper (popped into a bag for weather proofing, although would you believe the weather was gorgeous after all the rain we'd had?). We had to find all the colours of the rainbow to get to the other end where our pot of gold awaited.
The delight on the girls' faces when they saw the rainbow tutus was just magic. Total hit and worth every minute (although if I never have to cut another piece of tulle, I will be a very happy woman).
A 'lolly bag' (or, as my children shamelessly call them 'loot bag') is a traditional send off. I added a bit of fun to goodbyes by making the boxes into a 'jarbola' style event. Each child received a numbered ticket and got to claim their lolly bag by matching the number. There were three 'special' bags that three children were lucky enough to 'win'. I made that part up because I instead of 5 I only bought 4 packs of 5 silver noodle boxes and as there were 23 kids at the party, I was three short...
Harry,
Pink,
Rainbow... I am absolutely done with parties for this year. I was planning a 40th birthday bash of my own for November, but I called it off a week or so ago because my heart is just not in it. I think I would rather put on a party for someone else than myself. I'm not sure why that is, but I feel absolutely fine about it.
Happy rainbow party, my darling Cappers!
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