Tag: party planning

Kids Parties

Little Madame’s Mermaid Party

by s.a.b1 Comment on Little Madame’s Mermaid Party

Though she was a Spring baby when she was born in Europe, our little girl’s birthday falls into the very end of Summer here in South Africa, but usually we are able to host the party outside in the patio and most children tend to end up in the swimming pool anyway… Last year, we hosted a Mermaid birthday for her, and it was one of the most fun parties I organised for my children, it was hard work but I felt I could really be quite creative with the decorations and entertainment ideas.

I started off by stocking on fabrics from one of my favourite stores in Johannesburg, Chamdor: I wanted to create a girlie underwater scene, with shimmery tulle and coral sequin details, and then found a gorgeous netting that looked fun to add interest to the tables. Then I moved on to Party Spot to find some basics. I bought some round paper lantern that got turned into floating jelly fish with the help of some ribbons, shower roses and my faithful glue gun. That’s also where I found the pretty plain vanilla lilac paper cups that also got glammed up with some netting left over from the shower roses and some glitter glue. I dug out the little treasure chest we had for Little Monsieur’s Pirate birthday a few years ago, and filled it with seashells, pearl strings, and jewels.

The sweets table was lovely and easy to put together, with a beautiful cake from Carmella’s On The Square, little shark jelly fish, rock candy, all colour coordinated… Always mindful of having healthy options, I added little seaweed looking strings of green grapes, small buckets of raspberries that reminded me of little sea anemonies. Carmella also made some sea-shell macaroons which were just darling. We had small balloons into mesh made to look like buoys, and a super cute seahorse guarding the sweets (he clearly wasn’t scary enough as the little ones had devoured a big chunk of the sweets before long).

The children button stools and tretle tables were hired from Kiddies Theme Parties, and the little seashell plates and napkins from Meri Meri. We had chinese takeaway boxes decorated with mesh, more glitter and seashells as favour boxes.

For activities we had a big sandpit with little buckets for the children to make castles (our neighbours had had a Builders party for their youngest just a few weeks prior and we were able to recycle the sand and buckets), a few trays with pearls for mermaid necklace making, and some with seashells for painting with glitter glue. We also had face painting with the wonderful Monique from Never Grow Up, she does beautiful face paints and kept the little ones entertained before the candle blowing.

I loved putting this super girlie theme together, and looking back to it I can’t wait for the lockdown restrictions to ease so we can get on with the plan I had for this year’s party and have all of Little Madame’s friends join us for a fun afternoon.

With love, S.

Kids Parties

Little Monsieur’s mad science party

by s.a.b1 Comment on Little Monsieur’s mad science party

As a full-time working mama, I often feel quite guilty for not spending enough time with my little ones (who doesn’t…) and organising their parties from scratch is one of the many ways I have found to tone that guilt feeling down somewhat. By “from scratch”, I mean I don’t outsource anything at all, with the exception of the cake: cake baking and most importantly decorating is really not one of my strengths, I simply refuse to embarrass myself. But besides the cake, I plan and execute everything, with the dutiful help of Hubby Dearest who I think has come to dread party planning time… but I love it.

Three reasons why I love to do everything myself: I enjoy creating and decorating, I don’t like anything event planners have to offer (it all looks a little cheap and unoriginal yet it costs a fortune) and of course, it means I’m spending weeks focusing on what will make the littles smile on the big day.

One of my favourite kids parties to organise was Little Monsieur’s Mad Science birthday, which we had in our Johannesburg home. I try to keep most of our parties at home, it allows to set up as early as I want to (this year we started setting up on Tuesday for a party on Saturday) and to go as big as I want…

As usual, I first spent a little time online, mainly on Instagram and Pinterest, gathering inspiration, then I got to planning. Some props were easy to find, we were able to reuse the skull that we had brought from London and had already featured in a few parties (Pirates, Halloween…that skull has been used so often I should name it). We also re-used some party items that come handy each time and were well worth the investment: the drink dispensers, the cake stands etc; we use them over and over again no matter what the occasion.

Some other items were positively impossible to find. When we had this party I hadn’t discovered the Johannesburg-based party accessories hire places I know of now, so we had to buy the lab beakers and bottles from a real science shop, and I’m not quite sure when I’ll next have use for them, but we’ll see… That is also where we found some perfectly sized plastic petri dishes to have the pretend virus growth cultures (in reality blue and green jelly with silver sprinkles that we let dissolve on top).

The background blackboard-like panel with all the formulae was a download I ordered on Etsy, where I also found the printables such as the invites and the table labels: Johannesburg isn’t very big on original kids party shops but if you find anything online that you want to print, the print shops are really good and you can get some really fun things done.

I ordered the balloon garland and the tableware at Party Spot: the guys at their balloon counter are fantastic, if you explain to them what you need they will do pretty much anything with balloons, including a garland that makes it look like toxic bubbles seeping out of a lab bottle and on to the floor… I then customised the bamboo cutlery by adding some silver moshi tape and the glasses by adding a sticker where I drew graduations to make them look like lab beakers. Other fun finds: plastic syringes where we served green coloured custard cream, and test tubes filled with colour-matching M&M’s.

The entertainment was a fun yet educational session with Nutty Scientists: we had a real scientist (related to Einstein apparently…) come guide the children through a session filled with fun experiments such as making elephant tooth paste, creating mini explosions etc. The kids wore lab blouses and goggles we bought from our local building materials store. Everyone got to participate and it was a sparkling success.

Setting up was relatively easy for this one as all we had to do was fix the background to the sweets table and set up two extra tables: one for the experiences and one for the tea. I tried to keep in the spirit of a lab with high stools, and decorated some further with little lab mice (from a Halloween party a few years back), dry snow some slinkies. The tables and stools come from Hire Society, where I also like to hire for our grown-up parties…

And of course, we can’t have a birthday party without a cake. These days I order all my cakes from Carmella’s: I have tried a couple of other places before and found that this is the place to come for beautiful, delicious and reasonably priced celebration cakes. There you have it, our mad science party in a few pictures and words… I hope you like it!

With love, S.

Hosting Notes

Life is a party

by s.a.bLeave a Comment on Life is a party

One of the thing I miss the most during this pandemic lockdown is hosting… I love having friends over and my sole purpose in life when I have an upcoming party is to ensure people have a fabulous time. And usually, March and April are quite busy party months in our family, between holidays, birthdays, and champagne brunches just because… But, one has to do what one has to do, no big parties for a little while, until this pandemic slows down and we are all, hopefully, allowed back to our lives and our loved ones. Meanwhile, I am still able to share my favourite hostess tips, right?

We all know that throwing a wonderful party, or even just a lovely dinner, is mainly about the guests. Ensuring they are comfortable in your home, having a good time and all. As a Mediterranean, my first interpretation of this is: people need to be able to eat enough to be able to sustain a month-long desert crossing without any food or drink. I have toned this down a bit over the years, seeing as we were constantly left with a fridge full of leftovers, but the habit remains: if you come to our home for a meal, bring a serious appetite, in fact the best approach is to fast for one full day before, just to be sure. What else is important? Let’s see: will guests who are meeting for the first time get along, have I cooked these dishes for them before, do they eat everything or are they a little picky, are there guests who don’t drink, do I have my friends’ favourite drinks, do they like chocolatey desserts or fruity ones, so on and so forth…

Next, planning. The bigger the do the longer you need to plan ahead, especially if you do have an everyday job. Typically I will plan a meal, anything from four people to twenty-five, three to five days in advance (in Johannesburg you sometimes have to go around a few shops to find all the groceries you need, because the stock levels for special ingredients such as quails or tahini can vary, so I make a list on Monday and Hubby Dearest and I go on a hunting party during the week), a party for the children’s birthdays takes a good four weeks (and you have to make sure you send those invites on time to secure that one week-end afternoon you want!), and our end of year holiday drinks is something I start thinking about in October.

I usually choose one theme from the tableware to the food, and when we’re having big parties I go all out with branches of finbos hanging from the ceiling or mini potted lemon trees. I love Mediterranean and Eastern European inspired food, and spend a lot of time peering down books by my favourites, Yotam Ottolenghi and Ina Garten, although I have had a River Cafe book for over ten years that always yields the most delicious food. I know there is a rule book somewhere that says don’t try new recipes for a party, I say where’s the fun in life if you’re not a little adventurous, plus there is always the nearest pizza joint if it’s a real disaster. But again, make sure you plan, plan, and plan some more. If you can make anything ahead of time, do: pastry bases for quiches are super easy to make, you can store them in the fridge until next morning and bake them on the day, also you can freeze mini canapes for when you need them. Whatever happens, when you’re hosting, cook up a storm if you enjoy it, or order in if it’s your thing. Someone once tried to explain to me how important it was for a good hostess to have a great catering company on hand, so she doesn’t disturb her hosting with menial kitchen tasks, … I am still trying to understand what wrongful impression I gave this lady that she thought to share this meshuga advice with me as if I was ever going to follow it. I like to cook, the more the better, period.

On the day of the party, I spend a lot of time setting up the table, or the decor if it’s a bigger thing. I love flowers that match the theme, glasses that go together but are not from the same set, and nothing sings to me as much as a gorgeous table lay, which is quite funny considering my mother had the same passion when I was growing up, and I used to sneer at how much effort she put into her tables and dinners… Full circle, I guess. In South Africa I have found a few brands that I love buying tablecloths from, such as Samesyn, Isobel Sippel, and I now buy fabric by the bulk to have our local tailor make into tablecloths. I also enjoy visiting antique shops for delft plates and old crystal glasses, however I can’t wait to go to London and visit the shop of The Edition 94, its Insta feed is so incredibly dreamy.

So, food is ready, the house looks amazing, sparkling and fabulous but not intimidating (we do not own any white sofas or Spanish inquisition style heavy dining chairs… and our kids and their toys own half of the kitchen – family room), time to relax, have a glass of bubbly, put on some make-up, although if your coq-au-vin is almost ready it’s best to stay with an eye on it than go apply lippy, you can always fix your face during aperitif, but you won’t be able to fix a burnt sauce.

When people arrive, make sure everyone gets a glass of something they love; this is Hubby’s job at this point, although by now he has also helped clear out the multiple layers of mess I’ve created in the kitchen by making what he believes is a stupid number of recipes, and he is not too impressed that yet again I’ve cooked for twice as many people as we’ve invited. The guests are here, time to relax, have fun, chat around the kitchen island, let your friends help put the finishing touches to the food, and enjoy yourself. I know that, after this unique Black Mirror worthy first season of 2020, we will all be extra thankful for those times of togetherness, when we can hug our friends, feed them, and cheer to their health and success.

Love, S.