A Rainbow Unicorn Party in the time of Covid-19

Posted on March 25, 2020 by sara

Well, planning and inviting people to a birthday party during the height of a huge epidemic has been a new experience, even in super organised Singapore. While we were planning and inviting people the threat level moved to orange locally, and days before the actual party was when the United States went on lock down. But thankfully, nearly everyone who had RSVP’d made it. We did put a bottle of hand sanitiser (we made it ourselves, as it was near impossible to find!) and called them ‘unicorn tears’ and asked people to use it as soon as they entered– but didn’t manage to get a picture of it, sadly! But please know we were doing our best to be responsible as we could be with the information we had at the time.

We researched fun venues around town and finally found one that we liked, with good healthy food and supported sustainability. So we booked it (with a clause that if we went to threat level red we could get out of the contract), and sent out the invites!

Because the room was quite nice, with brick walls and curved windows, we didn’t have to do too much for the decor. Unfortunately, these great windows didn’t make for great photos, but hopefully you can see the overall effect.

We created a video that acted as decor, with unicorn themed songs that looped every 20 minutes. The idea was that it was supposed to be like a backdrop but it still sucked the kids in a bit more than we intended!

Our plan for entertainment was on the 2 tables- one with horns, coloring and tic-tac-toe, and the other with a colorful ribbon wand to make. I covered the tables in fun polka dot fabric that added some color.

We also did a round of pin the horn on the unicorn, but it wasn’t all that popular with the kids. Which was fine, honestly.

Ok, now on to the cake! My husband made it (of course) based on a picture I saw on instagram. It was beautiful and added to the decor!

The venue supplied the food and it went quickly! Chicken fingers, tofu pesto bites, guac and chips, pb and banana toast, chia pudding and yogurt cups. They didn’t have kids cups, so I found really cute rainbow cups for the kids and ended up making the tags.

Because the room had no outdoor space (and we had 20 5 year olds!) we decided we needed some additional entertainment! We found a storyteller who put on a unicorn costume and theatrically read a couple of unicorn books. She was fantastic and engaging and the kids were enthralled.

We followed the storyteller with cutting the cake– which was, of course, had rainbow layers!

The obligatory family photo! (Do you like our rainbow gear?)

Overall, a fun time was had by all!

Can You Dig It?

Posted on January 4, 2020 by sara

I’ll tell you, I wasn’t excited about this party to start. I didn’t think I could make a construction theme party cute. I asked for monkeys or elephants or airplanes or- basically anything else. But my son would not be deterred, so we made it happen. And thanks to @butfirstparty, I found some cute inspiration. So let’s dive right in!

Here’s the invite. We ended up hosting the room in our condo’s function room– which we will not do it again. You heard it here first. Here’s the invite.

We decided we would do a lot of activity stations, which was great for all of the little kids. We filled a water table with salt and put smaller construction vehicles in it.

We covered a soft kids pool (with fabric from Rush’s 2nd party!), filled it with rice and put some larger diggers in it. You can also see the road tape we put on the floor, which turned out really cute.

We used an IKEA table, filled with small pasta and lentils and some small vehicles for pushing and digging. This is now in his room, even though it’s kinda a pain to keep clean.

My husband built a digger out of cardboard to act as a photo op, and we also had an IKEA rug on the floor for them to push the trucks around.

We also did a cone toss and a rider digger outside.

The backdrop, made from the inspiration of @butfirstparty turned out pretty cute, although the fringe on top didn’t. Apparently I needed more than the 1,000 feet of caution tape I used! We ended up re-using the backdrop for this room.

We had some fun with the food and tried not to make it the same old, same old.

My husband made the cake- and he may have topped himself!

I made the orange cups into cones on the drinks table, and added a coloring table nearby (for the older kids).

We got a balloon guy to create balloon diggers, bulldozers, cranes, etc. My daughter wouldn’t comply with theme, but she’s cute so we forgave her.

My husband, who was the rockstar of the this party, also dressed as Rush’s favorite youtube star, Blippi.

Overall it was a really fun party, and we re-used a lot of the items to re-do Rush’s room into a big boy room. He’s a big 3!

…The Dino Party Continues

Posted on October 20, 2019 by sara

After 26 kids at the Moana party last year, we thought it might be easier to break up the event into 3 different events.

We had rainbow cupcakes in dinosaur cups…

The dinosaur in the supermarket party you saw yesterday…

And then we had a party at home for her playgroup friends. I pre-purposed a lot of the same elements, and added some more elements, including fun dino tails!

The kids at snacks and dressed up as dinosaurs.

My husband made a cute cupcake cake this time, that pulled apart. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Was it more manageable? Yes. Would I do 3 parties again? No. It was so tiring! For all of us, including the birthday girl. We celebrated the heck out this birthday!

Dinosaurs in the Supermarket

Posted on October 19, 2019 by sara

Since my daughter’s Moana birthday I’ve wanted to produce a girl’s dinosaur birthday party. So from the day after her 3rd birthday, I put the idea in her head… and it worked! It took me a bit of time to decide how to make it cute… until I remembered one of our favorite books, Dinosaurs in the Supermarket, and thought it would be a fun theme.

We used the illustrations as a starting place for the invitation, and added the red and white awning to make it more supermarket-like.

We found a playroom with a supermarket set up (among other things). So we used it as a starting place for decoration.

The birthday room was brightly colored, so we tried to keep it simple, with some red supermarket banners and gold foil balloons.

One of my favorite things were these adorable mini-carts we decorated the tables with dinosaurs pushing them, of course! The kids took these home, as they were filled with tattoos, a lollipop and dinosaur eggs to grow at home.

Also, the food at this party was pretty amazing. A dinosaur kale pesto, dino watermelon fruit salad, dino hump empanadas, dino cheese, and a supermarket sample tray, just like you’d see at a grocery store!

I added dinosaurs to the cups to help with identification and the red ones were for adults.

And, as usual, my hubby made the cake. My daughter asked for green on the outside and pink on the inside, so he made it happen. It was maybe his tastiest cake yet.

I think the kids had a good time!

Black and White Kitty Party

Posted on April 9, 2018 by sara

I know this is a year late in posting. I know. But in my defense, shortly after this party we had 2 international moves with 2 kids, 2 and less than 6 months. No easy feat, my friend. So posting this party fell by the way side. But this year’s party was amazing and I HAD to post. Which made me nostalgic… and here we are.

Last year I decided on a black and white cat themed party. My MIL gave me some fun wrapping paper for Christmas, which sparked an idea and the theme bloomed.

We decided with a 4 month old at home, we weren’t up for hosting, so we held the party at a nearby pre-school, which was perfect. We only had the room for so long, so I couldn’t get too crazy with the decorations, I didn’t have to worry too much about the mess, and there would toys. Done and done.

Also, because I had a 4 month old, I made and organized all the decorations, but I left it to my husband and my mother in law to set up. They did a great job.

We had a #2 balloon, which the birthday girl loved.