Master O Turns 6 – The Party Bags and THE CAKE!
Everybody loves a great “Goodie” bag. Kids Birthday Parties are no exception. Filled with the hope that they will be brimming with treasures, they eagerly look inside. Within an hour the contents have been either eaten or destroyed! All that “rubbish” that seems to be “cheap” adds up once you have filled a bag with it! Instead I use the same amount of money to buy each party guest some thing they can “savour” as a memory of the party. For Master O’s “Come Fly With Me” party it was a small wooden build yourself plane with colouring pencils. This year……
I created an assembly line with all the party favours. Don’t forget to include the Birthday Child!
The “BOYS”
- Fishing Party Favour Bags – Boys
* A “Levelled” Reader – “Dinosuar Train Tiny Leanrs to Fish” ~ Big W $4
* Bounce and Mould Putty – A “Dollar” Store ~ $2
* Bubbles ~ Dollar Store ~ 50c each
* Freddo Frog ~ $4 for a bag of 20!
* Small packet of gummy Lollies ~ $3 for a bag of 20
The “GIRLS”
- Fishing Party Favour Bags – Girls
As above but with
*A Levelled Reader “Barbie in a Mermaid Tale”
Oh and I chose pink and purple putty for them!
The “TODDLERS/SIBLINGS”
- Fishing Party Favours – Toddlers/Siblings
Many of the party guests have younger siblings who also attended the party. SO I made up a few smaller party bags for them.
* A small book “Fisherman Fred’s Alphabet Day” $2 Big W
* Small Tub of Playdough $3 for 8
* Small Bubbles $2 for 8
And a Freddo and Lollies like the big kids!
To “Containerise” them I bought some plain brown paper bags on sale (25% off ) at Spotlight.
I then added a simple swing tag I made at home in Microsoft Word. Attached it with some white string and it’s done!
THE CAKE
For this year, choosing a cake from “the Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book” was replaced with a Pinterest search for a “Sailboat” cake.
With this picture in hand I ordered a “half a slab” of undecorated chocolate sponge cake from Woolworths. I have done this nearly every year and it always proves to be the easiest option. From memory a half a slab is about $19 and there is always HEAPS left over.
I then cut a piece of baking paper the smae size as the cake. Drew a picture of a sailboat on it according to the size I wanted and needed to serve 20 guests. With some pins I pinned the paper pattern to the cake and cut! Yep just like sewing an outfit! I tried to place the pattern on as many straight sides as possible to reduce the amount of cuts.
I then assembled the cut pieces on the tray. I bought a large blue melamine tray years ago at Big W to serve as our cake tray and evry year it proves itself! This year I just used the cake board that was under the cake and placed it ontop of the tray.
Now for the Icing! Thanks to my clever Mum, and the suggestions of the “My Pieon Pair” Facebook flock, I went with store bought icing. I have never used it before, but was after the “whitest” icing I could get. A quick trip to Woolworths proved that it was meant to be with this “Duncan Hines ” Ising on special! I grabbed two varieties. Chocolate and Vanilla. Chocolate for the bottom section of the boat, Vanilla (White) for one sail and I would colour another tub of vanilla blue for the other sail. This icing, coloured easily, was super delicious and spread oh so easily and I could then just throw the empty container away! No Mixing bowls, electric mixers, melting butter, Measuring Icing, Cleaning the sifter! EASY!
I used some White Chocolate “Letters” from Woolworths to write his name on the bottom. The same “Letters and Numbers” pack also had some white chocolate stars in it which I used to decorate one sail. Some Blue Sour Strips for stripes on a sale and some chocolate wafer biscuits for the centre pole!
And there you have it a home/Mummy/woolworths made “Sailboat Cake” complete with candles ready for Birthday wishes. It may not look as perfect as the Pinterest picture, but his Mummy made it AND it tasted great!
That is the Party Prep complete! I love planning parties and for me all the details are worth it!
So are you a DIY cake maker? Or do you hand it over to the professionals?