A Rainbow Crafternoon … the beginnings

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When I was a young girl, ‘birthday time’ was my favourite time of year!  My two sisters and I had birthdays all within a four week period.  Never combined.  Each one a big themed event on it’s own.  We had the best games!  Mum still has the handmade hats, party bags and invitations from each one.  I remember each of us having a spiral bound notebook in which we would write down in detail the plans for our birthday.  I have followed the family tradition!   Although my mother thrived at ‘birthday time’, I am extremely grateful that my children’s birthdays are a little more spread apart throughout the year!

After realising yesterday that Goose’s birthday is a mere 3 weeks away, we whipped out the notebook and started planning!   Although it is no longer a spiral bound notebook, but a laptop!  It’s fun having an almost 9 year old who can do lots of the planning and we can organise it together.  Just like I did with my Mum.   Although it also means that I have to let go of the reins.  Something that I find a little difficult to do, particularly when it comes to parties… Goose’s main requests (although they were more like non-negotiable instructions) were for “that” rainbow cake and a sleepover!  So we decided on a quiet Rainbow ‘Crafternoon’ with 6 of her friends, followed by dinner and cake with her much loved extended family.  Her friends will then stay on for a sleepover.*  

Invitations now sent**, it is time to get our rainbow craft on for the next few weeks!  I love the theme!  The kid loves craft (bless her xo).
To see some more parties from team FGB, head over here.

Have you ever made “that” rainbow cake – help??!!

Have you ever had 7 nine year old girls for a sleepover – help????!!!!!!


* I may have bitten off more than I can chew considering we get the keys to the new house only 5 days before the party and the only way we can accommodate that many gals sleeping over is if we have it at the new house, but I figure they’ll only need sleeping room and all we’ll need for dinner is a BBQ so it won’t matter if we haven’t quite moved anything else over yet… will it?

**yes, I did notice that little typo saying that the party finishes 5 hours before it starts…. yes, they have been sent with that typo….  oops.  ;)

Fun & Healthy Party Food

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A few weeks ago the kids kinder teacher asked me to compile a list of healthy party food options and creative ways to display them to make it fun for the kids.  As this is the time of year that we are often required to “bring a plate” to end of year functions and as my waistline expands with the season, I thought I’d share…  

FUN & HEALTHY PARTY FOOD OPTIONS
fruit platter
fruit cups
fruit skewers
plain popcorn (perhaps in cups or cones)
dip and vegetable sticks ie carrot, celery, cucumber, capsicum
dip and biscuits or turkish/pita bread
vegetable platter
mini sandwiches (perhaps in fun shapes or pinwheels)
mini wraps
corn chips
cheese and biscuits
savoury muffins
fruit muffins
scones
fruit scones
pikelets
sushi
mini pizzas
mini quiches (unless egg allergies)
dried fruit or cereal (in cups)
cheese, cabana, olives on toothpicks

If there are lollies and chocolates, the kids are always going to go for those first, so it helps to make the healthy food look a little more exciting!  So, along with my list, I created a healthy party food board on pinterest that I am adding things to all of the time.  I’ve pinned lots and lots of really fun and simple, yet creative, ways to display healthy party food, but things that are still manageable.  It’s worth a quick look just to see how clever some people are!

I printed out these images for the kinder teacher and then of course I realised (too late) that I now had the pressure of coming up with a fun way to serve the fruit platter I’d put my name down to bring to the kinder Christmas party!  


I can attest to the fact that this fruit platter can be made with very minimal time or planning! With 30 minutes to rush home between kinder concerts* and no prior planning, I totally stole the idea from my sister’s salad, and chopped up whatever fruit I had on hand into small pieces and quickly placed them in lines in a triangle shape.  One of the kinder kids thought it was a rocket, but it was still eaten, after the chocolates and lollies were demolished of course.
What Christmas creativeness have you been getting up to?

Head over here for more FGB party ideas

*having one child in three yr old kinder and the other in 4 yr old kinder has it’s drawbacks!  The concerts were adorable though and will admit to tears in eyes.

A Party for a Fairytale Princess

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“Once upon a time there was a young princess. 

On the occasion of her fourth birthday 
she invited all of the princes and princesses 
of the land to help her celebrate. 
 The party was to be held at her castle
 on the eleventh day of November from two o’clock 
where they would play party games and eat cake until four.”

If you’d like more info on the details of this princess party, just send me an email and I’d be happy to share!

For more FGB parties head on over to the party ideas page…

linking in with Bird’s monthly party linky which is full of ideas of everyday parties and more!

DIY Temporary Tattoos

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I promised quite some time ago that I would share a little more about how to make your own temporary tattoos.  Yes, you can make your own tattoos!!!!  I was pretty excited when I found out.


I purchase my tattoo paper from a local Melbourne seller on ebay.  The tattoo paper comes with very clear & detailed instructions on how to make your own tattoos, which you can get a sneak peak at here, but basically the tattoo paper comes in two A4 pieces.  The first piece is for you to print on and the second is a clear adhesive film to stick over the top.

It only works on inkjet printers and it is very important that you make sure that the image that you are printing is reversed (ie mirror image) so it will come out on your skin the right way around.  Ignore the fact that I did not do that in the pic above as we just used the images for that party which look just as good mirrored.  It is correctly done in the pic below which we used for Frog’s Supergirl party last year.



The possibilities of temporary tattoo images all of a sudden become endless!
  
There are thousands of free printable images available on line, you could use your own drawings, images that match your party decor or even tattoo your phone number onto your child’s arm.  The ice cream images that we used in the picture below can be found here.

Be careful though, because if you look away for any more than the 20 seconds it takes to apply a temporary tattoo, you never know where your children might apply them!

If you’re not into making your own, check out these very funky temporary tatts over here.

For more DIY party ideas, you might like to browse through the FGB party ideas page over here.
Have you tried making temporary tattoos before?  How did it go?

A PIRATE PARTY TO REMEMBER – the activities

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You’ve seen the food and now it’s time for the activities …  
In true pirate treasure map form, an ‘x’ marked the location of the party on our front gate along with a few red, white & black balloons.
When guests arrived they could don themselves with pirate scarves (stripy fabric cut into triangles) and eye patches as well as get a scar or moustache painted on their face with face paint and a pirate tattoo!

We set up a bit of a photo booth to take photos of all the little pirates, but to be honest, it didn’t really get used.  Next time, I’ll do it in a more obvious spot and make sure there is someone given the specific job of taking photos in the photo booth.  
Our pirate ship was made from an old plasma TV screen box (thanks to hard rubbish!) with enthusiastic help from Bear & Frog and the kids are still enjoying playing with it!

The children could then find their pirate ‘loot bag’* on the table and run around doing activities around the yard.  For each activity they received a prize for their loot bag…   
ACTIVITIES:

WALK THE PLANK

 walk the plank & receive some treasure for your loot bag.
KNOCK ‘EM DOWN

Knock down a tin can pyramid with rice bags and receive some treasure for your loot bag.
Small rice bags thrown at tin cans covered with some printable paper.

     

                                        
TOSS THE COIN

Toss large silver coins into treasure chest to receive some treasure for your loot bag. 
Coins made from cardboard circles (the portholes from our cardboard pirate ship!) covered in aluminium foil & frisbeed into a large box.

                                                       

DIG FOR BURIED TREASURE

Gold coins buried in the sandpit which were then swapped for chocolate coins.  We learned our lesson at an ‘underwater’ themed party a few years ago where we buried chocolate coins on a very hot day… you can imagine what happened!


WHERE IS THE TREASURE?

Place an ‘x’ sticker where you think the treasure is buried on the pirate treasure map.  No blindfold required!  I just placed an ‘x’ on the back of the map and the children had to guess where it was.

PINATA

A treasure chest pinata filled with treasure of chocolate coins and candy jewellery.  I have made pinatas in the past (well worth a go!), but when I saw this treasure chest at my local discount party shop I thought I’d save myself the effort.  

Purchased pinatas are a LOT harder to bust open!  After each child had multiple goes each, big sister Goose gave it an almighty whack…

and the hordes descended!

At the end of the party, their pirate ‘loot bag’ was their take home bag filled with the goodies they had collected during the party.  ‘Pirate’ is a very popular theme, so no trouble at all finding inexpensive pirate themed goodies!  
Had to include the following shot, ‘coz Grandpa & Uncle Thomas coming all the way from Adelaide for the party was pretty special.
 Always a little sad when party time is over – bring on the next one!

Pirate Party food – click here.
Pirate Party invitations – click here.

More FGB parties – click here.


* I purchased these muslin bags on etsy.com and then stamped a ship stamp and the child’s name.

A PIRATE PARTY TO REMEMBER – the food

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We celebrated Bear’s fifth birthday on Sunday with a pirate party! Bear is particularly keen on pirates so it was the perfect theme for him!  He had an absolute ball which is, after all, why we go to all the effort!  As per usual, I’ll separate the party into two posts.  This one about the food and the next about the activities or we’d be here all day!
To put it into perspective our party was held at 2pm with roughly 20 children and 20 adults.  I usually seperate the food into two sittings, savoury while the activities are going and then dessert served with birthday cake at the end.

SAVOURY

popcorn in cones - I use this template to make my cone shape & I always use the sweet & salty flavoured popcorn premade at the supermarket.  It’s delicious!

octopus dip - hommus dip with capsicum octopus, olive & bread eyes secured with toothpicks – thanks kymmie & pinterest!  
sea salt chips - it’s just such a nautical flavour!

cabana & cheese - secured with pirate sword toothpicks that were purchased here.  

desert island dip - french onion dip over a block of cheese to secure the cabana skewer & toothpicks to secure the capsicum leaves.  Red capsicum ‘x’ marks the spot.  Saw it here & just had to try!  The dips looked awesome, but it’s never a popular party food :(


chicken sandwiches – recipe here. Thanks to my sister Lou for making them!

squid - thanks to my friend Susannah who inspired this one! You cut six slits into the bottom half of the hot dog prior to cooking and as soon as you pop them into the water to cook, they just curl right up.  These were a huge hit!

egg & bacon pies - we have these at every party.  The recipe is here and you can freeze them weeks in advance.

sausage rolls - you can make and freeze these weeks in advance also.  I can email if you’d like my recipe.
pirate fruit swords - thanks again Kymmie for the idea!
‘walk the plank’ bread - fairy bread cut into rectangle shape with choc sprinkles.

DRINKS
water bottles - decorated just like the invitations with old maps and twine.  Should I admit that I chose the bottles at the supermarket that had a little wave print on the bottle…it matched the theme…


white cups with red stripy straws - So much easier to find your drink if you name the cups and it saves on costs too!  We had a drink dispenser with fruit juice cordial in it alongside the cups for the kids to help themselves.


tea & coffee - set up for adults to help themselves along with kettle, milk, sugar, teaspoons & disposable mugs.  These teas are the Madame Flavour ones from the supermarket, ‘coz I think they look a little fancy…
There was a small amount of wine & beer for the adults as well, but no need for a photo of that one at a children’s party….

DESSERT

strawberries – served in stripy cupcake holders with little wooden forks.  You might recall seeing these at a certain fireman party a couple of weeks ago… Lou always has awesome party ideas and at this party, just like hers, they were a big hit with the kids and disappeared quickly…. this will become a new party staple!


pirate ship jellies – thanks to pinterest once again.


pirate swords – the new must have at every party, coz the kids love them.  Grissini bread sticks dipped in chocolate.  These swords were covered in gold and silver edible glitter.
lollypops – wrapped in pirate fabric scraps & twine.  Fabric leftover from the gorgeous bunting that my sister made last year for her son’s pirate party and kindly lent to us!


anchor biscuits - my faithful shortbread recipe can be found here.  These can be made days in advance which is always a winner!

cannon balls, pirate teeth & bullets - lollies in stripy bowls.  These were a steal at $2 each from kmart – bargain!

THE ‘TREASURE MAP’ BIRTHDAY CAKE – let’s face it, this is the most important part of the party as far as most kids are concerned and particularly for the birthday child.  This fact always causes me no end of stress at 1am the night before the party which is when I always seem to be decorating the cake!  Thanks to some awesome tips from Simmoney (you must check out her son’s neverland party!) one sister for baking the cake and the other for helping me style the ocean, this cake caused very little 1am stress (although it was still decorated at this time) and I was very happy with how to turned out!

I even followed Simmoney’s tip of hiding some treasure (smarties) under the ‘X’ on the cake!  It’s all about the extra touches ;)

 Just keeping it real – couldn’t have done it without the extra help in the kitchen!  As well as these two wonderful helpers, extra special thanks goes to both of my sisters for being ‘above & beyond’ party helpers who just ‘get it’.

After all the info in that post, you should have all you need to have your very own pirate party, but if you do have any party questions, you know I always love to help when it comes to parties so please feel free to email!

Stay tuned for the next post with the pirate party activities!
What’s the next party you are planning?  

If you’d like a squiz at previous parties here at Frog, Goose & Bear, just head over here.

Pirate Party Invitations…

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We’re getting ready for a pirate party here at FGB headquarters.  
This week we made invitations.  Plastic bottles, sand, shells & a pirate treasure map.    
For the maps we used these free printable invitations thanks to Betsy from B.Nute.

How far in advance do you start planning your kids parties?
Any pirate party ideas for me?
For more FGB party ideas, head over here.

Ebony’s Farm Party

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Early last month, I did my first ever party planning gig for a friend’s gorgeous 3 year old daughter.  Thoroughly exhausting, but I absolutely loved it and was thrilled with how it all worked out!  The party was held in the ‘party barn’ at Coopers Settlement Children’s Farm.  The perfect setting for a farm party!

Prepare for photo overload…


If you’re as into parties as I am, you might like to check out some more FGB parties over here.




- A huge thank you to the highly talented Cathie for making the cupcakes and the deliciously bright pink birthday cake!! If you’d like to make your own cupcakes just like these ones, Cathie has written a very easy to follow tutorial here. 


- Thanks also to the wonderful Maxabella for the pigs-in-mud, marshmallow eggs & toffee apples, ideas & tips – they were all huge hits!  


- Thanks so much to Holleigh for giving me the chance to let my creative juices flow and for your amazing generosity & encouragement throughout.  I honestly loved it - even if I fell down in a heap at the end!  Your friendship is one that I treasure.  

- Cow hats – available here.
- Cowboy/Cowgirl cookie printable labels can be found here & the delicious Aust. cookie recipe (with more super cool labels) can be found here.
- Eggs in nest recipe can be found here.
- Yes, the rest of the party may just be available in some form sometime soon in an FBG party pack in the not tooooo distant future.  I just need to find some time somewhere… along with time to start that etsy store… soon might just be a relative word…

A Skater birthday party!

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I wanted to share with you some pics from my nephew’s Skateboard themed 6th birthday party that we went to a couple of weeks ago.  You might remember his awesome Pirate party last year?

The children were invited to bring their wheels – scooters, bikes, skateboards, etc.

They could decorate their ride with streamers…

colour in skateboard pics…

apply skateboard tattoos…
eat some yummy & healthy goodies

or pin the wheel on the skateboard…

and then they all headed off around the block a few times 


in their decorated bikes (and back to front helmets!!)
before coming back for some sweet treats and birthday cake!

Party printables were purchased from this etsy shop.

Great theme for a cool 6 year old school boy!
It’s harder to find cool themes as kids get older, what fun themes have you had for school aged kids?

If you’d like to see some of Frog, Goose & Bear’s parties, head over here.
If you’d like to share your party with us, head over here.

AN AEROPLANE PARTY

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I have been eager to show you all some photos from a birthday party that we went to in January.  It was held outside at the local park and was such a lovely day!  I thought I’d show you some photos of the extra special touches!  An aeroplane party was the perfect theme for this little three year old who has gone on more plane trips than most little girls her age!  


Aeroplane fairy bread.


Aeroplane Biscuits

An amazing aeroplane pinata

 Aeroplane Coloring Pages to decorate.

 Paper plane construction & flying.

The gorgeous host with the birthday girl.
This was the birthday girl for whom I made the map bunting and her lovely Mum was influential in encouraging me to start blogging in the first place.  Thanks Alison!  

If you’d like to see more party posts, head over here to the FGB party page!
Or if you’d like to share your own party, head over here to the FGB DIY party linky!
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