Birthday Invitations

(9th Party Invites, paper from Stick n Giggle,
Shop 10 The Old Flour Mill
231 Brisbane St IPSWICH )

With a Ekka School Holiday, I needed to find an activity that
would keep my daughter busy, and also tick off one of the many items
on my personal to do list.

So, as Rose will be celebrating her 9th birthday very soon. What better
than to start organising her party.

First up, what are we doing?

This shouldn't be to hard to organise although, I have created a problem
for myself. For those who know me, you will know that when it comes to organising
birthday parties, dinner parties, or anything else of the sort. I tend to go a little over board.
I just love it.

When it comes to a child's birthday party, if you have set the bar incredibly high for the
first 8 yrs of life, where is there to go.

My sister will often joke with me, asking if the wiggles have been booked.....etc.
She thinks its hilarious the lengths I go to.

Well this year, I've decided to go smaller than usual. I figure, we will mix it up a little with a traditional sleep over party.

A little birthday party history, to set the scene.



(whilst looking for photos of the Blues Clues party, I found this short video)



1st Birthday - Blues Clues Theme. Filled a room with Blue and Magenta Helium Balloons, Decorated the walls with Blue Paw Prints. The Room Filled with Balloons and Streamers had a Kids work table with a myriad of Blues Clues Themed colouring activities, we had face painting, a crazy clown, about 50 guests, and the ultimate Blues Clues cake. That was the source of many phone calls a day later, wondering if its normal for a 1 year olds poo to be bright green. Apparently after digestion blue food colouring turns a bright shade of green. OOOPS!

(Steve the Clown, Nathans best friend dressed up for the occassion)

2nd Birthday - Kindi Farm hits the suburbs. We invited all of Roses Preschool friends and my
entire family to a Farm Themed Party. With the Kindi Farm as the main entertainment. Rose was wearing a groovy red gingham shirt with jeans and a straw cowgirl hat. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I hired hay bails and used them as seating around our postage stamp sized suburban back yard. In the middle of the yard was the Kindi Farm with Ducks, Chickens, Piglets, Goats, Calves, it was great. I went over the top making stick on name tags for everyone in animal shapes, all hand drawn you see. I remember the night before the party getting into a huge argument with my partner, because I wanted to set up the party tables the night before. This making perfect sense to me as I had soooooo much to do the next day. I ended up moving all the furniture myself and setting everything up until, I had guilted my husband into helping me. I remember Rose was very quiet at the party. She had a great time, but It must have been so over whelming for a 2 year old.

(Rose's cousins feeding the baby calf)

The cake was a Rocking Horse cake, chocolate. At this stage I will point out that I have always ordered the cake, from a cake shop. I was working full time, and figured I could only manage so much. A smart move I feel. Although as my mother and sister have always prided themselves on making their cakes, I cop a bit of flack for this.

3rd Birthday - Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatters Tea Party.

Ok for this one, I will need to explain that my husband and I were both working full time, and as you do when you are working full time, you like to give your kids the world. With that said,

We got up early on Rose's birthday and flew from Sydney to the Gold Coast to go to Dream World for the day. We had a wonderful time. Rose was so excited to fly on a plane, she had flown before, but as a baby, so she was very excited to fly to Dream World. We stayed overnight
at a resort on the Gold Coast, and the next day we drove from the Gold Coast to Tregeagle in Northern NSW.

Okay, I can hear you asking were is the Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatters Tea Party? Well if flying to Dream World wasn't enough for a 3 year old, she was taken to my Parents farm and surprised with a Mad Hatters Tea Party.

(me dressed as the Mad Hatter, and Alice wondering
what her mummy is doing up a tree)

I was dressed as the Mad Hatter, My husband as Tweedle Dumb, my father Tweedle Dee, my Mother as the White Rabbit, and my sister as the Queen of Hearts. We had a Door Mouse, and Great Grandparents dressed as King and Queen of Wonderland. Rose was Alice and had the most magnificent handmade Alice in Wonderland outfit you have ever seen.

(my beautiful Alice in Wonderland.)

At this point I have to say, that all the preparation was made by my Mother and Sister. They set the Tea Party, hired the outfits, and made everything perfect. And the setting well I
will let the pictures speak for them selves. Oh and the cake was the White Rabbit covered in coconut, my mother and sister took great pride in making it. I still hear about it today.

(the fabulous White Rabbit cake, baked and decorated by
Granma, and Aunty Suzy.)

One extra thing, Rose got the dream present her own horse "Celeste" every little girls dream.


(Aunty Suzy as the Queen of Hearts and Rose as Alice)



4th Birthday Party - Dream World with a surprise visitor. My husband and I had just returned from a visit to Italy. Rose had been on holiday with Granma and Poppy. We surprised her with her best friend from Sydney Cheyne. The morning of her birthday we drove to Dream World and had a wonderful day. The cake I decided to make myself. First time ever. It was a dreaming pony with a magnificent mane, that I found online. I was very proud of this cake.

(Cheyne and Rose at Dream World. )

(First ever home made birthday cake. )

I can hear you all saying, enough.....please.....So your crazy and your kid is ultra spoilt....Well it gets worse.

5th Birthday Party - Princess Shahara Party. I must start by saying, this is my first year of being a stay at home mother and I have moved to a country town in Queensland. We don't know to many people, and I'm a little obsessed with being the perfect mother and wife.



We invite all of the girls in Rose's Preschool Class. This is about 14 kids. I decide to make them all Harem Outfits, little purple and pink harem pants, and tops, with scarves from chiffon, equip with bells. I also make party bags from the left over fabric that double as library bags, I fill them with hand made colouring books, pencils, a myriad of fun gifts from Abracadabra in Bangalow.



On the day, my mother and sister come to the party to help serve food and decorate. We have filled the down stairs party room with helium balloons in purple and pink, created the most amazing birthday table, with sparkling star confetti and to top it all of the children are amused by the fabulous Princess Sharhara. She teaches the girls how to dance and whaile like a middle eastern princess. It was fabulous. I must say, even though I recognise I went over the top making 14 outfits, it was a beautiful sight, seeing the girls arrive and realise that they
all had equally beautiful outfits. And that they could take them home as a party favour, it was just beautiful.

(Princess Sharhara Party)

I made this cake. It was a layered concoction, with plenty of lollies and icing sugar. Ooh, the other over, the top thing we did, was fly Rose's best friend from Sydney in to join in the party.
Turned out to be not such a great idea, as she was incredibly shy on the day and didn't want to take part in the party.

Oh well we live and learn.

(a not so happy visitor from Sydney)

6th Birthday Party - The Fairy Party set in a Local Vineyard. Rose is at a new school and shares her birthday with another girl, so we decide to have a joint party. But I'm still a little over the top and decide to have a fancy dress party on the grounds of a local vineyard. With Wine Tasting and local treats for the adults whilst the children are entertained by a local Fairy Lady.

(Rose and Alex the Birthday Girls)

What a great party this was, and what great photos, as you can imagine. Having 6 year olds running down the isles of a vineyard made for some magical photos. We all had a great time including the kids. This year the cake was made by Rose's friend Alex's mother. And it was a fabulous Fairy castle.

(fairy castle cake by Belinda Walker)

7th Birthday Party - Outback Spectacular - This one not so much on the organising and a lot on the hip pocket. We decided to let Rose invite a small group of friends to join her to watch the Outback Spectacular Horse Show on the Gold Coast. One little surprise, they were picked up by a stretch limo, and enjoyed movies and soft drinks on the way to and from.

(Yes a limo has a sun roof)


8th Birthday Party - Wicked stage show in Melbourne, This one was a combo, Rose and I both celebrated our birthdays together. We flew together as a family to Melbourne, had a day in Melbourne CBD shopping for theatre outfits and then that evening enjoyed the spectacular Wicked stage show. It was fabulous. Rose got to taste her first ever Coca Cola when she started crying at intermission. She was that tired that she just wanted to go back to the hotel room. We had paid for Silver Class tickets and were not going to miss out on the second act, so at intermission, my husband got me a champagne, and Rose her first Cola. Did the trick. She was happy to sit through the second half, and bouncing all the way down the street on our way back to our hotel room. The next day my husband and Rose spend the day at Luna Park at St Kilda and I browsed the markets. Pretty spectacular!

( Exhausted after a day of shopping for theatre outfits. )

(To much fun at Luna Park, St Kilda)

So this year, what could we possibly do to impress. Well, we have talked about it for some time now, and it seems that a normal birthday party is going to be all the rage this year. Its quite a novelty with Rose. So Yippee, we are taking a group of Roses friends to the movies and then coming home for a sleep over and then Pancakes for breakfast on the deck....

Today Rose and I got started on the invitations, and I was impressed with Roses ability to choose patterns that looked great, yet still individual to her personality.


So here is the beginning to my obsession that is the perfect birthday party.

We found the great paper from a local Scrap booking store, Stick n Giggle. Jody the
owner of the store was very helpful. Rose and I had loads of fun choosing the
papers. Ultimately it was Rose's decision, she did a great job on the colours.

Rose has chosen Red envelopes with a shimmering finish. She just had to have the birdy paper and chose a black leaf pattern for the back ground of the invites. As the paper was double sided with a lovely pattern on the reverse, we used the black leaf design to seal the envelopes. With Red, Pink and Clear Crystal brads to seal.

We will carry the theme through to the party bags and thank you notes, so will post the images on the blog closer to the party. Invitation list is currently at 15 for a sleep over. What am I thinking. EEEKKKK! This could be scary, not a lot of sleep I imagine.