This weekend was the big day – Miss 5′s birthday party! My own first memories of birthdays past began at my fifth birthday. I remember mum making a “Dolly Varden” cake from the Women’s Weekly cookbook, complete with faux Barbie inside the cake. I remember receiving the coolest gifts from my friends and family; my first “lipstick”, a set of fashion plates (which I have since recovered via the magic of eBay) and a special dress with matching hair ribbons. As I thought about my own fifth birthday, it occurred to me that so much of what happened on that day and the type of gifts I received, have gone a long way to shaping who I am today. And so it was that I decided that this birthday had to be a cracker for my own daughter, something that she would remember for the rest of her life as a fabulous pink dream.
All these intentions are well and good, but just how the heck do you pull something like this off without a team of event organisers and caterers at your finger tips? Here are my tips for making your own Unicorn Pony Party.
Pick Your Colour
When you’re a five year old girl, you just can’t go past pink. Sugary sweet it can do your head in, so pick your shade wisely. We decided that “Musk Stick Pink” would be our shade of choice, and then applied that to everything we possibly could. It helps if you already have a bit of a colour theme to your home decorating and can scam pieces from your own collection to help pump up the ambiance. I brought out every pink table cloth, bowl, picture frame, flower and outfit I possibly could. Even Mr SKM got in on the act wearing a pink and red shirt!
Carry Your Colour Theme Through to the Food
The easiest way to make your party table look fancy is to carry you colour theme over to the food. When your catering for kids, this is 100 times easier than trying to come up with adult versions of coloured food! So we had every pink and white lolly we could think of, musk sticks, marshmallows, jelly snakes, white chocolate cover red licorice… enough to make your teeth fall out just looking at it. Savoury food was covered by those ever popular “little boys” also, reddish in colour, and the usual mini quiches, pies etc.. and for desert (as if all those lollies weren’t enough) mini pavlovas with pink whipped cream and raspberries.
Pink Cake Too!
Rather than staying up till midnight the night before, creating some elaborate confection that was way above my culinary skills, I decided to stick to cupcakes again this year. I still haven’t gotten the hang of that perfect icing yet, and spent much of the previous evening licking strawberry frosting off my elbows as the piping bags continued to burst mid swirl. They passed the taste test with flying colours though.
Goodie Bags!
Every good party comes with goodie bags, but after such a sugar laden day, I didn’t think that sending people’s children home with yet more sweets would be the best idea. As some of you know first hand, mixing both sugar and red food colouring is akin to baby crack, so sending them home with yet another stash would have probably seen me relegated to parental purgatory. The goodie bags are a fun, cheap and easy way to win good party points with all your guests. Once again, make sure to stick to your colour theme, but think of things that can be used over again and aren’t simply going to break or end up in land fill. They needn’t be expensive, but just make them look pretty!
For our stash we put together little pink organza bags containing My Little Pony makeup sized bags, super cute doggie sticky note pads, scented erasers shaped like cookies, and a little Cuppa Chup lolly pop.
The Piece de Resistance
All the best parties have one event that makes them the stuff of legends. The stuff that shapes memories and imagination. When I was asked for a Unicorn Pony for her birthday I knew I had a challenge on my hands. But with the magic of the internet, a little saving up, some glue and glitter; I managed to work a miracle.
Behold – The Unicorn Pony!
And now after all that, I plan to retire from partying for at least another month… until Miss One turns Two!
