The party

Well needless to say, I am totally and utterly exhausted after Eloise's 4th Birthday party. She had a wonderful day. Here are a couple of photos of the day.

Our little fairy.

The food table

Gorgeous cupcakes made by Eloise's Godmother, Melanie

The paper flowers (I stuck them on balloon sticks)

Dainty fairy sandwiches made by Eloise's other Godmother, Carina.

The branches have pom poms and butterflies glued onto them.

The pink lemonade (made by mixing lemon and raspberryade).

It tasted truly revolting but the kids loved it!

The fairy Queen.

We set up a throne in the corner and every child had their photo taken on it (to be turned into thank you cards later on. We borrowed the fantastic toadstools from Eloise's ballet teacher.

 

Our other fairy Queen, Madeleine. She was such a huge help on the day!

And finally, our two gorgeous girls playing pass the parcel.

We also played Musical statues and pin the star on the fairy wand (Maddy and I painted a fairy on a big piece of paper and the kids had to stick gold stars on the picture and try to get it on top of the wand.

We also had art activities so that everytime there was a lull (or there was a queue for the pin the star game), they could go off and amuse themselves. They made butterfly wands (I used butterfly cards from the John Sands range, cut in half to make single butterflies.) The kids decorated them with stickers, pens and glitter and then glued them onto lolly sticks. We also had the fairy colouring in pages to keep them busy if they finished their butterfly. I really couldn't have managed the party without an awful lot of help from my lovely friends and of course from Richard who spent the vast majority of the afternoon washing dishes, taking video and making coffee whilst I had all the fun directing the party games.

Eloise had a wonderful day which was of course the whole point of it. Now I have to just get used to the fact that my baby is 4 years old and this time next year she will be starting school. I am so going to miss that funny bunny when she does!

It just won't wait

Some of you may remember a post a week ago when I said I was going to try not to get carried away about Eloise's Birthday party? Well, I really didn't try that hard. I got totally carried away and have loved every minute. The party is tomorrow and I've been busy all day getting ready for it. I really need to just sit down and relax now but couldn't wait to show you a sneak preview. First of all, Eloise's birthday cake.

 I am so pleased with it and Eloise loves it too. She said "Oh Mummy, it's just like the one I wanted!" You can't get better praise than that. The wire cake topper and all the butterflies, the plaque and the ribbon came from a really lovely Trade Me seller called Margaret. (Hamish329). She has just started selling on Trade Me and I can't recommend her highly enough. The set I described above only cost me NZ$22 and I can't say enough about how wonderful it is.

I'll definately be going back and back to her. All the bits and pieces (aside from the ribbon and wire) are edible. The green base is a cake board that I covered in green icing. The cake is a Donna Hay rainbow cake. Here's one I made earlier (always wanted to say that! This is the cake I made for Eloise for her real birthday)

The recipe is in the latest Donna Hay children's annual.

I've made some pink chocolate butterfly lollipops. The mold came from another Trade Me seller (Kirinlockie). If you want to colour chocolate, get some food colouring paste as the liquid just ruins the chocolate. The paste is awesome. I had never used it before this week and now I am totally hooked. It's really reasonable considering how far a little bit goes. I got mine from the cake decorating shop on Hurstmere Road in Takapuna (a couple of shops down from Cotton On Kids).

And I finally, here are the cutest little personalised stickers that I bought from another Trade Me seller (charliehorse_nz) And yes I know, I went a little mad with these bits and pieces, but everything else I used for the party came for what I had at home so I think I can justify it! The little stickers are just gorgeous and are a great and totally inexpensive way to add gorgeous little personalised details. Here they are on little lollipops.

I took the plastic wrapper that they came in off them and used glad wrap secured with a little tape. The old wrappers stuck out at the side and just didn't look pretty. And here the stickers are on the little bags of fairy dust I made up for the loot bags.

So cute but I am going to have to remember to warn the Mum's that this glitter fest is in the loot bags before they go home otherwise I am NOT going to be popular. I can just imagine lolly-fuelled kids let loose with fairy dust inside. Hmm. Not the best idea maybe but fairy parties NEED fairy dust.

I am soooo excited about tomorrow. I'll post pics when I've recovered.

My Creative Space - Party Preparations.

I'm sneaking my Creative Space in a day early this week because I'm going to be crazily busy tomorrow and won't manage to do it otherwise.

My Creative Space this week is all about my soon to be 4 year old and her upcoming Flower Fairy Birthday Party. I am having SO much fun with the preparations for her party and so is she. She has been my little helper all day today. We've made some paper flowers from napkins.

And we made some fairy bunting using an op shopped flower fairy book that Eloise spotted (makes me so proud!). Just cut the book pages into triangles and zig zag stitch onto ribbon. So quick, so cute!

(try to ignore how badly our windows need painting. It's on the to do list!)

And these are my favourite.

Party loot bags made from another old childrens' book. There is a tutorial for making gift bags here which is roughly what I did, without all the reinforcing. I can give you measurements and instructions for  my version next week if any of you are interested? They are super simple to make. If you can wrap a present, you can make these.

A few more bits and pieces to do before the weekend's party and then it's all decorating and party fun. Can't wait!

For more Creative Spaces, pop over to our lovely host Kirsty's blog, Kootoyoo.

Just a word of warning.

Just so you know; if you happen to pop around to my house this week, you will be required to drink at least one bottle of fizzy fruit juice. This is so I can use the empty bottle for the soon to be four year old's birthday party.

This won't be too much of a hardship I assure you. It's quite tasty fizzy stuff. Not quite the standard of the fizzy stuff with the exploding cork of course, but I'm happy to add a dash of  vodka should you need it. Come to think of it, should the Birthday Girl receive any more birthday cards that sing Happy Birthday over and over and over and over again ....... I might add a dash of vodka myself.

And some of you (yes I know you are out there because one of you is Mr Cotton Kiwi), may question my sanity over emptying soda bottles for the sake of filling them up again. But, I'm a crafter so it is in the job description to do things in a very convoluted and slightly crazy way in order to get them exactly how I want them. And besides, they will look pretty.  I saw something similar to these in the latest Kids issue of the Donna Hay magazine and thought it was just the thing for a flower fairy party.

(The before and after shot, in case you were wondering which soda I used)

So if you are, like me, imagining how gorgeous these are going to look on the party table, I shall tell you what to do. Simply grab a packet of pipecleaners and a Hawaiian Lei flower garland (makes about 10). Cut your pipecleaners so they fit loosely around the top of your bottle neck. Dismantle the lei and make the holes in the centre of the flowers slightly larger  (I stacked about 6 flowers together and folded them in quarters and then cut the pointy bit off). Thread about 10 of them onto your pipecleaner, including a leaf and then close the ends by twisting them. Cut off any sharp bits, spread the flowers out and drape artistically over your bottle. I shall be filling my bottles with pink lemonade (raspberry cordial and lemonade) and pink straws. And I shall have a large cloth handy to mop up the numerous spills that will inevitably occur. Ok then. I will agree that I am probably quite mad having drinks like these at a 4 year old's party. But they are going to look so pretty!!!

Flower Fairy Party

Eloise is turning 4 soon and we are planning a flower fairy party for her. I'm making the most of it as I'm very aware that my baby is growing up fast and the days of fairys are numbered! Like most families, we're doing this on a budget so I was thrilled to find so many free resources out there on the big world wide web.

We used these gorgeous fairy invites from here. Simone has a whole bunch of gorgeous free invites on her website and she also writes a fabulous blog full of party tips. I'll definately be using some of them from her fairy party.

I've printed out and photocopied several of the placemat colouring pages from the official flower fairy website. I'm planning on providing lots of glitter and glue to help the kids make their pictures more authentic.

We've made a start on the take home gift by making homemade sparkly playdough (recipe here) by adding glitter to the playdough recipe. We've packaged it up in cello bags and curling ribbon and it's looking rather gorgeous.

We'll be decorating with lots of huge paper napkin flowers which the kids will be able to take home with them. I'm trying to avoid balloons if I can because they drive me crazy with the tears and fights that ensue when someone's balloon pops at home! I'm hoping that the flowers will find a place in the bedrooms of the fairies so that they can be reminded of the day for longer than a balloon would last.

image from Made

There are lots more plans in the works but I'm doing my best to keep it simple. I get so excited by birthday parties and have to fight with myself not to overdo it. It just makes me stroppy when I can't achieve it all and lets face it, as long as the kids get something sweet and a couple of party games, they don't really care about the tiny details!

While it's still fun, I'll keep on going with my plans for the party. Eloise and Maddy are enjoying the party plans as much as I am at the moment. If you see me going overboard and getting stressed about it all, do feel free to tell me to settle down and reign back on the plans!