May 20, 2013

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Give Your Child a Swash Buckling Birthday to Remember!

April 29, 2013 by

Avast me hearties! I’m here to tell you about the amazing benefits of throwing a themed party for your child’s birthday – and not just any themed party. Forget princesses, Spiderman or dinosaurs; pirate is the way to go, and I’m going to explain how you can throw the best pirate-themed party that will have your child and all of their friends swash-buckling for weeks afterwards!

The brilliant thing about the pirate theme is that it’s accessible to both boys and girls. There’s no pink-and-blue division here – everyone can come dressed equal and enjoy the same games, characters and decorations. Tell gender to walk the plank and have a non-prejudiced party for your son or daughter!

So what do you need to do to achieve the perfect pirate party?

Decorate: You basically need to transform your house into a pirate ship – no big deal, right? It’s easier than it sounds! Make a few skull and crossbones out of painted cardboard to hang above the front door so parents find the right house (click here to find out how to make one!) while finding a Jolly Rodger to hang in the hall! A treasure chest can easily be created out of a picnic basket or sewing box, and by wrapping a few of your child’s building blocks in gold and silver paper, you can create bars of gold and silver. A few plastic jewels dotted around the place and swash buckles will all help to create the right effect.

Games: At some point after the children have all arrived, compared costumes, and got their temper tantrums out of the way, it’s time to play some pirate themed games. Obviously a treasure hunt always goes down a treat. Create a treasure map out of a sheet of A4 paper – by staining it brown with a teabag and making jagged cuts along the edges, you can create an old look. Give the kids clues to lead them around the house and ‘bury’ some treasure for them to find – and we all know a child’s greatest treasure is chocolatey treats! You could also play games to decide who talks the best pirate language – this website’s great if you want to brush up on your arrrghhh’s: www.piratetreasurenow.com/pirate-phrases.htm

Food: Speaking of edible treats, you need to think about what food you’re going to supply. Obviously pirates weren’t known for their culinary finesse so you’re going to have to improvise on this – rename a lot of ordinary food to become pirate food – chicken drumsticks can be seagulls’ legs, while Scotch eggs can be barnacles – that kind of thing. You can also opt for a few different pirate-themed food accessories to hype up the pirate theme – companies like Party Care supply candles, cupcake holders and cake trays all bearing pirate faces and patterns. Check out their website: www.partycare.co.uk/birthday-cake-decorations.html

Once you have these three things sorted, the only thing left to do is to find the right costume for you and your child. You could do the home-made version – a belted t-shirt with cut-off pyjama bottoms. Or you and your partner could go the whole hog and order fancy dress, which let’s face it is more impressive. Websites like Bryony Theatrical have a wide range of pirate fancy-dress, from Captain Hook to Jack Sparrow: www.bryonytheatrical.co.uk. Once you’re costumed and everything’s in place, there’s only one thing to do – hoist the flag!

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Filed Under: Child Health, Childrens activities, Children’s' Parties Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Forest Pirates and Crinkly Wings: Baby’s First birthday

February 22, 2013 by

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Your son or daughter probably isn’t going to remember their first birthday, but that does not mean that their first year on earth is not worth celebrating. In fact, my mother once described my first birthday as my most important in her eyes and therefore most stressful because she knew in years to come it’d be down to her, family and a scrap book of photos and stories to tell me all about it. For me, my mother’s feelings about my first birthday were a novel way to think of it which lead me to consider what I might do for my own daughter’s first birthday.

Every party needs invites, especially when the birthday girl (or boy, as the case may be) isn’t yet articulate enough to invite their nearest and dearest. For a lot of people invites refer to a stack of pink or blue written slips filled like paperwork over the course of an afternoon. This doesn’t have to be the case. There’s a couple of ways, I can think of, to approach party invitations.

You can inject some excitement into the hand-written invitation in two ways; you can make you own to give your party invites that added special touch or you can splash out on some especially well designed invites like those I opted for from www.partycare.co.uk. I chose to buy invites because, personally I’ve no artistic flair (cake making aside). Party Care were able to supply all my party bits and bobs, actually; they stock some brilliantly kooky fancy dress costumes for the older kids and have a section dedicated to baby’s first birthday supplies…not to mention cake decorating supplies too. Perfect!

Which leads me on to the second thing you’ll need for the perfect baby’s first birthday party…a baby.  Ok, seriously though, number two on the list is the cake. Have you thought yet whether you intend to buy or make baby’s cake?

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Now, cakes are where I come into my own. I can’t wait for baby to be old enough to show her the pictures of the cake I made her, but I still had a lot to think about . I made and decorated baby a Moomin cake. Its creation required supplies though. If you’re working to a tight budget, be warned, making your own cake can appear a cheaper option, but if you’re intending on using coloured icings and cake decorations, expenses can quickly escalate. Hence, purchasing a cake can actually cut costs, half the stress and guarantee you get the result you want. A popular alternative to making your own cake is the ‘photograph cake’, available from most  ASDA supermarkets.

Being baby’s first birthday, many families choose not to bother with a theme. It’s understandable and more than likely that your adorable toddler-to-be is only going to fill that fairy costume with cake anyway. Theme or not, you can’t escape decorations though. Have you thought about balloons, table cloths, bunting?

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Personally, I did opt for a theme and fancy dress. While my little bundle of trouble might not appreciate being wrapped up in ribbon and crinkly wings, her older cohorts certainly did. So, I turned to the good people at NetMums to help me to come up with ideas that would compliment my Moomin cake and eventually decided on an ‘Enchanted Forest’ theme. We painted trees on lining paper, cut them out and stuck them about the house. We devised games, such as ‘pin the berries on the bramble bush’ and stuck (soft) sweets to the trees so the kids could pick them like fruit. Plus, keeping a theme somewhat vague allows guests the freedom to think up their own ideas and get the older kids involved too. We had ‘forest pirates’, fairies and even a hedgehog turn up.

The last thing I did in preparation for my daughter’s birthday party was both the most boring and the most important –safe guard your house. You will never have enough cocktail sausages and cake to stop the little ones from trying to chew their way through, well, whatever they can. Also, with all the dancing and general bopping about both the kids and adults were doing by mid-afternoon our mahogany armchair arms could’ve presented a real hazard, had we not thought to move the furniture to the edges of the room and create space for everyone.

Another ‘health and safety’ issue we faced was allergies. There will always be at least one little one with a food or bubble mixture allergy. Find out, before you begin writing shopping lists, who likes what and who might swell up at the sight of peanuts. During children’s parties, there will always be moments in which not every child is being watched too closely. I don’t mean to scare anyone, but it’s just the truth of the matter. A moment is all it takes. Hence, I found the best way to avoid a birthday blowout (or worse) was simply to omit any food stuffs which figured on the allergy list. You’re going to have enough to contend with come the party, don’t add ambulances to the list.

And last but not least, have fun, get involved and worry about jam stains tomorrow!

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Superhero Dogs and Hot Dog Babies: Children’s Fancy Dress Parties

February 13, 2013 by

The last party I attended was  a fancy dress, birthday party for an eight year old. I remember it vividly. One friend dressed their dog in a superman cape. Another parent showcased their artistic flare by making their child’s costume themselves; their poor son spend three hours unable to sit down in a large cardboard outfit, dressed as Sponge Bob Square Pants. Suffice to say, by the end of the party he was, instead, waging war on the bouncy castle in nothing but his father’s Thundercats t-shirt. One little girl was dressed as a strawberry. Another couple brought their four month old son dressed as a hot dog. All in all, it was a brilliantly bizarre affair, and proof of how children’s parties continue to thrive, even in the midst of a recession.

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Almost twenty years ago now, my 8th birthday party involved my older brother using our mother’s make-up and father’s old clothes to dress like a clown and make my school friends cry. Meanwhile, my mother spent all morning skewing cocktail sausages and cubes of cheese only for us kids to then remove the cocktail sticks and attempt to stab each other, leaving a trail of uneaten finger-food in our wake.

Back when I was a kid there were few options and almost all of them involved DIY and papier-mâché . Even at a time when fancy dress was customary, such as Halloween, your mum would simply sit you down and ask if you’d like to be a witch, ghost, black cat or pumpkin for the more ambitious parent, as I remember. Costumes were limited, not by imagination, but certainly by time constraints, money and artistic ability on your parents’  behalf. Now, come Halloween, or birthdays, or even Christmas, I see friends’ children dressed as everything from Yoda to Willie Wonka. There is a vast choice of children’s fancy dress  available for hire these days, such as that offered by Fun and Games Direct.

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With the popularity of trick-or-treating waning in recent years due to concerns over safety and the all the horror stories told in the newspapers, such as The Guardian, the party really has come into its own. Long gone are the days when Halloween meant ripping a ‘head-hole’ in a black bin-bag, placing a plastic cone on a kid’s head and telling them they were a witch before sending them out to bother neighbours for sweets. And while I must admit I was initially sad to see the lack of kids tottering around the street with bed sheets over their heads, turning up to a party at which a baby has arrived dressed as Elvis Presley does go in some way to alleviate my grief.

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