How was your Easter? We had a great few days in Edinburgh being complete tourists! We visited Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Yacht Britannia and Holyrood Palace, as well as taking in the sites and sounds of the city. We had glorious weather and it was the perfect short break away to recharge the batteries.
We still have another week of the Easter Holidays here where we will be catching up with friends and heading out to local attractions. As the weather gets better I think it is inevitable to think about the outdoors, getting together with friends and the upcoming birthdays and parties that follow. My son's birthday falls in the summer and it is around this time that I start to think about what sort of party to arrange. Ever since he was young, he has dictated the theme by choosing a cake which I then use to build the party around. This year will be a big change as he will not be having a party at home or in a hall, but a smaller gathering with his best friends. The sign of a boy truly growing up!
I wanted to share with you some of the birthday parties I have put on for him to hopefully inspire you if you are searching for a theme. Not everyone has the time or inclination to do this and I think it is only worth doing if you are going to enjoy the process as much as the birthday boy or girl enjoys their party. I really loved making things for my son's parties, getting the right sort of decorations, thinking of interesting games and activities and just allowing them all to have fun! I'll be sharing my favourites throughout the year as well as my top picks from Pinterest for even more inspiration!
Today I am sharing one of his very early parties so excuse the quality of the pictures! The earlier parties were very much unisex in nature as we always had an equal number of boys and girls coming to the party. I didn't have Pinterest back then to guide me, so it was a case of searching the net for ideas as well as looking at party stores for inspiration.
My son and I were out shopping one day and I needed some cake supplies so we headed to a local shop. The shop sold a few cake decorating books and one really caught my son's eye. On the front of the book were pictures of pumpkins and frogs, but the one that stood out on the back cover was a cake shaped like a dragon! Well that was it, he wanted me to make him that cake for his next birthday! I was terrified by the prospect to say the least! The cake was 3D! It stood up! It wasn't a design on top of a round or square cake! This meant cutting and shaping cake pieces and covering the whole thing in fondant, things I had very little experience of at the time!
As you can see it looked pretty daunting! But he was absolutely convinced I could make him this cake and that it was the one he wanted, so I reluctantly said yes!
I sadly do not have a photo of the invitations. I took some plain A4 paper and painted it with diluted tea. Once it was dried I wrote on it in fancy script using Ye Olde words! I then rolled it up and tied it with a ribbon to look like a scroll.
As my son was so young, the party had to be very pre schooler friendly. The first thought that came to my mind was that Knights are all about fighting, swords and dragons. Hardly a good basis for a pre schooler's party! I started looking around for supplies and was very pleased with what I could buy that was suitable. We decided to have the party in a local hall so that the children could run about and play as well as dipping in and out of the activities. I have never been one to over organised the kids at the party, just a few games and plenty of activities for them to choose to do or not.
As they were quite little, I set up a reading corner. I purchased dragon themed books and puzzles from EBay that cost very little.
This one was a big hit as each page had a puzzle to make. It was brightly coloured, glittery and sparkly, so appealed to all.
I wanted some sort of craft and as we had recently moved, I had a lot of cardboard boxes! I took a wide low box and cut turrets in the top to represent a castle, then painted it grey. This took a long time as the cardboard was very stiff and it made my hands ache! I drew in a castle door but left the rest of it plain. I purchased lots of foam and regular stickers, pom poms and pens that the children could use to decorate it with. I also printed out some dragon colouring pages for those that preferred to have a quiet colour.
It was set up on a long table with plenty of chairs so that lots of the children could participate at the same time. I also purchased plain paper crowns that could be decorated. You could just buy lots of coloured paper and make your own.
As you can see it was pretty successful! Thankfully with such a long table, everyone was able to get their craft on without annoying one another!
I always enjoy making things for the party and I had seen a cartoon dragon on the front of a colouring book. As I had large cardboard boxes, I decided to copy him onto a large piece and paint him.
He was going to just be for decoration but as you can see, he had a hole in his tail! That gave me an idea! I cut this hole out to be round, along with 2 more up his body. I bought 3 juggling balls and we used these for a little game. Each time the kids got a ball through a hole, they got a little sweet. Naturally it was very popular!
I named it Dragon Ball and set it up where it wouldn't matter where the balls landed behind it. This is where a large hall or garden comes in very handy. The party could completely spread out.
I found a large inflatable dragon on EBay that was for the pool. That gave me an idea for 'slaying' the dragon! I didn't want the youngsters to use plastic swords so plumped for inflatable ones that could do very little damage! I set them up in another corner for the children to pick up when they liked to have a bash.
He was great for a ride too!
Slaying the dragon!
To bring everything together, I plumped for some pre printed Knight party ware. This came with balloons, streamers, centrepiece, plates, cutlery, pre filled party boxes and a helium balloon. I purchased these from an American website called Birthday Express. They no longer ship to the UK but there are lots of UK websites that specialise in party ware, and I find that EBay is always a great source for out of the ordinary items.
I set up the food on a table away from the main play area. This meant that the kids wouldn't be bumping into the table and the adults could supervise!
I stuck with 3 colours, red, blue and yellow. The streamers we twisted and strung around the hall. I used helium to fill all the balloons and placed them around the edges of the hall. The cake was set up in the corner with the special helium balloon.
My son has loved Pinatas from a young age but again I wanted it to be appropriate for the age of the party goers! I purchased a dragon shaped pull string one when I got the rest of the supplies. I filled it with the usual party fillers and we strung it up, not too high, between some pillars. This was the finale of the party!
This particular pinata can still be purchased.
Finally we come to the cake! Looking back I can of course see mistakes that I made, but it is still one of the cakes I am most proud of. Plus it was a lot easier than I imagined it would be! The book is fantastic, lots of designs to choose from and great instructions. You can purchase a copy here or from a cake/hobby shop.
Naturally the dragon had to be chocolate! I purchased 2 glass pudding bowls to make the cake.
A lot of fondant went into this one.
The plastic dowel sticking out of the top allowed his head to sit with some stability on top seeing as it was totally made of fondant.
It wasn't until I had finished him that I realised that the green fondant was 2 different shades!
The dots on the back helped to disguise some of the fondant I had problems with when covering.
A massive belly of cake!
I saved the Dragon for the family and made some simple chocolate cupcakes for the party guests. As I didn't want to stick candles in the dragon, I gave him his own cupcake with candles for the birthday boy to blow out!
All the children dressed up as Knights, Princesses and even Dragons! The costumes certainly added to the fun! This is a great party for both boys and girls. You will see these pins on my specially set up board as well as other great ideas I have found!
Have a great weekend!
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