A Roar-ing Jungle Party

I'm not sure what's with kids and animals - both little boys and girls alike, they just love animals. Wanted to have a girly theme party for my little princess (more for me really cos i've already done a jungle party). Something like a garden party or a butterfly party would be nice. I can already imagine how to transform our garden into a flowery wonderland - pretty & sweet. But no, my little girl wouldn't hear of it. She wanted a LION party. So oh well, a jungle party it is.

Jungle Gym in BSC is a great venue if you want a hassle free party (and it suits the theme just well). In case you are considering, party packages start from RM38 per kid for the most basic package. The basic package will do, since the kids most likely wouldn't want to eat or play games as was the case with our little guests. All they wanted to do was to run free in the 'jungle' playland.

And what's a jungle party without a cake befitting the theme? For a cost effective alternative to expensive decorative cakes, just buy your favourite cake from your local cake shop (we got ours from secret recipe) and decorate it yourself. These days you can buy ready made rolled fondant. All you need is a little bit of creativity and lots of googling for inspiration. And just like how you would do with playdough, just go ahead and do some modelling :-)

I'm making it sound really simple eh? If you're not up for it yourself, give us a buzz and we'll see if our in-house creative director is up for some freelance project at a reasonable fee. This is what she did... amazing isn't it? Except of course the cake turned out to be smaller than expected so we couldn't fit all the jungle buddies on the cake. Oh well... next time we have to coordinate better :-)

Party goody bags

It's been a while... a loooooong while since I last posted. Another birthday party is coming up and I'm scrambling to find the perfect goody bag to hold all the goodies I've purchased for my little guests. Problem is the ones out there are either too small, too big or too expensive. Wouldn't you rather spend the money on more goodies insetad of on the bag itself?

I've googled and googled, even comtemplating making my own paper bag (I need one that is of A4 size - yup i have some large items for the goody bag). Finally I stumbled upon Musings of a Mom who blogged about where to get brown paper bags in KL (refer to this link http://www.mom2ashley.com/blog/?p=3762). You cannot imagine how glad I was. Thank you so much mom2ashleyaidan for sharing. I hope the brown paper bags are still available :-)

All Aboard

Toddlers typically have short attention span, and don't participate well in structured activities. Normally they'd be happy just running around in the yard. But if you're having kids of varied age groups, it pays to plan ahead to keep the kids occupied and happy.

Some basic pointers:

1. Keep the party short (2-3 hours work best for a kids party)
2. Stay away from competitive games
3. Involve mummy and daddy

Here's a sample itinerary for a transportation themed party. But don't worry too much about keeping to the plan. In H's party, the kids were more interested in free play, and they were having just as much fun :-)
 

Craft for transportation party

As an ice-breaker activity, we made these cute little paper clay luggage tags for the kids to colour and decorate while waiting for their little friends to arrive.

These were the plain luggage tags. We painted in the outlines to make them easier for the kids. What's so great about using paper clay is that you can use colour pencils, crayons, magic markers or paint to colour on it. We gave the kids magic markers and colour pencils to avoid the mess :-)

These were some we painted using acrylic paint for the babies.

For customised party craft kits / activities, please contact funparties_kl@yahoo.com

Ticket to Fun

I made this boarding pass invitation card for H's birthday party. It's got everything he wanted - airplane, train and car :-)

Not sure if H really knows what an invitation card is but he's staring to grasp the concept of having a birthday party. Kinda weird huh how toddlers pick concepts up. I showed him his invitation cards and told him these were for his little friends, so that they can come to his party. And everytime he sees the cards, he wants them. He will hold the cards and name everyone he knows to come to his party - "poh poh come to my party, cheh cheh come to my party, .... ". How cute!

For customised invitation cards, please contact funparties_kl@yahoo.com

How to make a train cake

H's birthday is around the corner and we're doing a transportation theme party :-) Was trying to get him to decide what cake he wanted. First he said he wanted a car, an airplane and a boat, then after much coaxing, he agreed to having only one cake. For the longest time, he insisted he wanted an airplane cake, then he changed his mind. He wanted a car instead. And most recently, he's decided - "I want a train cake". Since train cake isn't that hard to execute, we'll attempt to do it ourselves. I think it'll be fun cos you can decorate the train carts with lots of different and colourful candies. H will definitely have fun helping out! Check out this cool video on how to make a train cake.

Halloween dressup

Halloween is just around the corner and we're now scratching our heads on what costumes to make for the kids. I'm not sure baby H would appreciate us putting anything over his head - he was never a big fan of hats or caps - so that would rule out dressing him up as a pirate or cowboy (these were my initial ideas cos i could improvise with what we already have). Daddy wants to dress him up in a skeleton suit, but i'm not about to dish out good money on something he will only wear once. So if no bright idea comes to mind, I'll tie a cape on him and make him Superbaby :-)

Girls are much easier - little C can dress up as a fairy, a princess, or a little gypsy girl!