kids parties

Emma’s Flower Garden Birthday Party (& Devilled Egg recipe)

Emma’s birthday always sneaks up on me. It’s usually around the same time as Easter so all the chocolate bunny hoopla tends to be quite a distraction. I always have the best intentions for organizing a proper party and actually inviting her little friends, but alas, between school holidays and the Easter break, it never happened.
Luckily for Emma, her aunts, cousins, and grandparents kept calling me to find out ‘what time they should come over for the party?’, so like it or not, I had to throw a party!

So what does a time poor mum do when she needs a little birthday party theme inspiration? Get out the old Women’s Weekly Birthday cake book and hit Pinterest of course!
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How To: Frida Kahlo inspired Floral Headband

It’s fun having creative friends, friends that love colour and irreverence and fun. Friends that make art and think it’s awesome when you show up to their exhibition opening night dresses as Frida Kahlo. Maddie had suggested it in passing, “you should come as Frida” and I thought, yes I will, and so will Emma, because the only thing better than one Frida is two Fridas. The exhibition had a Day of the Dead theme (Dia de los Muertos), so we fit right into the riot of colour.
The costumes were easy to put together with clothing and accessories we already had at home, I only had to make the headbands. It didn’t take very long, and Emma enjoyed helping me choose the colours and bend the wires.
If you want to make a floral headband for your own costume or even as a bridal wedding headpiece read on…

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Kids Craft: Doughnut Garland

Yesterday we had a small party at home for Emma’s 3rd birthday. She is a little obsessed with doughnuts (calls them pink bagels, lol), so I thought a doughnut themed party would be fun.
Whilst the cake was baking, we made this pretty garland together with bits and pieces from the craft drawer.

You will need:
Paper Plates
Pink craft paper
confetti
glue stick
scissors
hole punch
yarn or string

How to:
Parents to pre prepare- Cut hole out of center of paper plates and cut pink paper into irregular shaped rings to form ‘icing’.
Child to stick paper icing to plate and have lots of fun gluing on confetti ‘sprinkles’
Parent – Punch two holes in ‘doughnuts’ and thread with yarn to form garland.
String up your work and admire.

This is a great party project as each child can make their own doughnut to take home or combine to string up as a garland.

I also made a cake that vaguely resembled a doughnut, and had fun decorating some balloons by gluing some confetti on them.

www.mypoppet.com.au

How To: Dip Dye Wooden Cutlery

I acquired a ton of this ‘disposable’ wooden cutlery recently which was crying out for a fun and colourful makeover. With Emma’s birthday approaching I thought it would be a pretty alternative to the usual plastic fare widely on offer.
To ensure the cutlery would remain ‘food safe’ I used food colouring rather than paint or fabric dye for this project.

You will be able to find this wooden ‘eco’ cutlery and most good party supply stores and some supermarkets. The rest of the materials you probably already have sitting in your cupboards.

Liven up a party, barbecue, picnic or even lunchbox with these colourful eating accessories.
Here’s how…

What you will need:
Wooden cutlery (uncoated)
food colouring/dye (liquid or paste)
water
a few bowls or containers
paper towel
a protected work surface

How to:
**protect your clothing and work surface as food colouring will stain everything, including hands. Mop up spills promptly**

- Make up some strong solutions with your food dye and a little water. The stronger the solution the deeper the colour result.
- Place the cutlery in the solution, it will be absorbed up the wood by capillary action. Get the kids to place bets on which will win the absorption race!
- Once you are happy with the colour result, rinse off the excess dye on the handles under running water. We don’t want our guests to go home with stains on their hands.
- Allow to dry on some paper towel.

Don’t they just look so pretty?

And if you are wondering what happened to the cake…

www.mypoppet.com.au

Eva’s Christening Day

I wanted to share some of the pretty photos from baby Eva’s Christening last month. My sister hosted the Afternoon Tea Garden Party in her back yard after the church ceremony, and did such a great job of making everything so pretty.
The sweet treats were delish. Emma helped herself to SO many cakes, she was bouncing off the walls!
A great time was had all round.
You can see a close up of the christening dress I made her here.

Thanks to From Genevieve Photography for the lovely photos, there are more photos of the day on her blog here.

www.mypoppet.com.au

Kids Parties – Charlotte’s Western Hoedown

I couldn’t resist sharing some photos from a super fun Western themed birthday party the family went to a couple of weeks ago. Charlotte, the most adorable little red head I know was turning 3. She loves Jessie from Toy Story (who was there by the way, top left), so her mum Sharon decided to go all out with a Cowgirl theme.
The western theme was carried through to the food which included chilli con carne and nachos, and the party favors, bandanas, sheriff badges and mini cowboy hats filled with treats. The hats are perfect Blythe doll size so Perty is wearing it now.
We love to dress up so I pulled out the old cowboy boots for me. For Emma, a neckerchief, some jeans and a checked shirt and she was the cutest cowpoke in town. She insisted on being a cowboy so the mustache completed the look.
Doesn’t the photo top right look like it should be on a Wanted poster? It’s adorable.

Photo credit: Photography by Michele, Top (all images), bottom (lower right)

www.mypoppet.com.au

♫ Happy Birthday Miss Two…♫

As mentioned yesterday, Miss Emma turned Two this past weekend. I wasn’t really even planning a party, just a cake and maybe some balloons…the non-party wasn’t to be, because it turns out my friends and family don’t believe in ‘non-parties’ and invited themselves round anyway.

It was a good excuse to string up the bunting and get the pretty tablecloths out for a pretty floral themed afternoon tea…

Not much cooking involved, just the cake and some sweet treats from a local Greek cafe.

I was pretty happy at how the cake turned out, even though it wasn’t from scratch (i used some packet mix and a couple of tubs of ready made frosting), I handmade the icing decorations myself.

It was a little bit tricky, because I should have done some research first, but essentially I kneaded icing sugar with a bit of water and food colouring till i had a mouldable paste. Created my little flowers and set them to dry whilst the cake was baking. Apparently adding glucose makes the paste more malleable and less crumbly so you don’t get any cracking, next time I’ll be more prepared and buy it ready made.

Emma was very happy with all her guest’s attention and lovely gifts, which included a scooter (from mum and dad), a black board, a Thomas the Tank (that we will eventually find batteries for) a groovy retro toy cash register and (the big hit) a card that plays Queen’s ‘Another one bites the dust’.

Lots of cake still left if anyone wants a piece? I think I’ll go and have some now, my sugar levels are getting a bit low…

www.mypoppet.com.au