Saturday 11 May 2013

Bethany's Pyjama Party Round-Up

This is the last of my posts about Bethany's Pyjama birthday party...I promise!  (See the previous posts with tutorials about the girl's PJ's here and here).  

Anyway, when Bethany first announced her idea of a Pyjama-themed birthday, my first stop was google and Pinterest to try and get some inspiration.  I was trying to find ideas and inspiration for party food, party games and the birthday cake.  I was surprised to find there were not many pyjama party ideas (age-appropriate ones at least ... hmmm, cough!) around.    So Daddy and I put our thinking-caps on, and here's a run-down of the ideas we had.  Hope this might be helpful for anyone else planning a little girl's pyjama-themed party.
1.  The cake!
Whenever I start planning a birthday party, I can't help immediately starting a mental plan for the cake!  I love baking, and since I did some lessons a few years back with a friend who has an AMAZING talent with fondant icing, I have really enjoyed thinking about new fondant designs to use.  This cake was so much fun to make, and the best part was that with the blanket-icing, I didn't have to struggle with getting my icing covering all smooth around the edges, which is probably the thing I struggle with most when icing a cake with fondant.
Oh, and did you notice the icing-Bethany's PJ details?  Look familiar? ... yep I'm a little nuts for detail like that!!

2. The Food
This is Daddy's favourite part of organising any party.  He's a bit (OK, a lot) of a foodie, and he just loves to try new things.  As we decided to have a morning-time party (10am), and because of the PJ theme, we called it a PJ brunch, and made breakfasty-style food ... 
Cheese and Bacon Mini-Muffins using this recipe.

Mini-pancake Stacks (with jam and cream) - I just used the pikelet recipe from this book

"Orange Juice" - aka a shot-glass of orange-flavoured jelly

Mini Banana Muffins - Also from this book

Ham and Cheese mini-"Baguettes"

"Hot" Chocolate - For this I bought ready-made chocolate milk, and diluted it 50:50 with fresh milk (boy that ready-made stuff is strong), then just added a couple of mini-marshmallows.  It was served cold ... couldn't risk having any scalded munchkins ... but they didn't seem to mind.
The kids totally loved this one!!

We also had a couple of non-PJ-themed foods ... just 'cause we thought they'd be fun!
Fairy Bread - of course!!  (Thanks to Aunty J)

Mini-chocolate crackles

Lolly Sushi - A friend gave me this idea, and we used this recipe ... It's really cute and tastes great, but next time I would use only white marshmallows (as the "rice" turned out VERY pink), and I might choose only green-coloured fruit roll-ups, rather than a mixed pack, just so it looks a little more authentic-sushi!

3.  The games
This is the part of the party that I/we struggle most with generally.  We love planning the food, the styling, the cake, the party-bags, but what to play?  Here's the pyjama-themes games we did ... though I bet you could come up with a million other ideas:

Pin the Tail on the Donkey Slippers on the Princess ... The winners got a prize from the lucky-dip bag of goodies ... which were generally pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, little pads of paper, glow-sticks ... small trinkets like that.
A huge pat on the back for Daddy who drew the princess, and all the animal slippers for her to wear ... he's very artistic, and Mummy was SUPER impressed!

Sack Pillow-case Race - Sorry, no pic of this one, but I just bought 6 el-cheapo pillowcases (pink of course) from out local Reject Shop, and the kids lined up (6 at a time), and raced to a line we taped on the ground.  The winner scored a prize from the lucky-dip bag.  Oh, and I haven't wasted those pillowcases.  They're now in my fabric stash (after a quick wash).  Will be great as bodice-linings or other sewing fun like that!

We hired our Church Hall for the party (since Bethany invited almost 30 kids).  This was a great option as it has an outdoor area to play in which the kids were able to do at the beginning of the party while everyone arrived, then when it poured with rain a little later, and the party formalities were all done, they were totally happy to just run around in the hall, yelling and playing with balloons.  It was VERY noisy, but they all seemed happy with that ... whatever works really!

4.  The party-bags
Out of everything for the party, this was the thing I had most fun with ... I came up with the idea of using these disposable coffee cups with lids (available at most discount stores).  In them I put a sachet of hot-chocolate-mix, a few mini marshmallows, a couple of milk-bottle lollies, and a fun-size chocolate bar.  I loved that this was a novelty (and the kids and Mums told me they loved them too), and that after the hot chocolate was done, and the few lollies eaten, there were no little junky bits and pieces.  Now, don't anyone get offended if you always put little cheap toys in your party bag ... I usually do too, and the kids love them ... they're fun!  But it was nice for a change to not have to think about what I could get away with throwing out, and what I needed to find a home for...know what I mean?  
The other thing I loved was that by choosing a plain colour (black in this case), and using a little piece of ribbon and some little homemade tags, they could be used to say thank you to the guests and look just a little special too.  There was absolutely no fuss with these, they were very quick and easy.
So that's the run down of Bethany's party.  I really hope everyone who was there had a great time.  Bethany sure did.  I was really impressed by how all the kids embraced the theme and wore their jammies.  It was also fantastic to get to know the school families a little more, and have them get to know us too.  

Also, can't post about this without saying a MASSIVE thanks to Daddy's family (Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother and Aunties) who were fabulous on the day with helping to put together all the food.  Mummy was a little stressed about hosting so many kids, especially seeing as this was our first go at a party where the parents could leave their kids, and come back later if they wanted to.  Our family were such a blessing on this day to take away all the kitchen stress so Mummy and Daddy could concentrate on the kids.  Thank you, thank you!

2 comments :

  1. Those gift "bags" were a great idea, so sophisticated and fun. A very well planned and put together party! : )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lots of Good information in your post,
    I favorited your blog post so
    I can visit again in the future, Thanks.

    ReplyDelete