Princess Theme Party

Picking the birthday theme for my youngest daughter's first birthday was a no brainer. Her name is the same as one of the Disney Princesses, so a Princess Party theme it was! I really enjoyed planning this party and welcomed the challenge to do it on the cheap and DIYing as much of it as I could. I may have gone a little overboard given it was just a small family party, but hey, she only turns 1 once right!?

Here is the party in review:

The Invite

How things have changed since I was a kid, where you would buy the pad of invitations from the shop and handwrite all the party details on to them. These days there are a plethora of websites offering awesome customisable invitations, all you need to do is press print.

I used a FREE customisable invitation from Printable Invitation Kits. I loved that I could change as much or as little of the text as I wanted.

Fully customized FREE invitation printable.

The Outfit

I searched for many hours online trying to find the perfect princess dress. Most of the licensed Disney costumes are sizes 3 and up, so they were ruled out pretty much straight away. The Disney Baby website provided a lead on a princess onesie available at the US website Kohl's. While the onesie wasn't expensive, once shipping and a forwarding service was factored in, I was looking at >$40 for a onesie I wasn't completely sold on.

There were a few cute outfits on Etsy, but again, once shipping costs were factored in, I couldn't justify spending so much on a one-off outfit. Ebay had lots of suitable cheap outfits, but all were coming from Hong Kong or China, which all have a 6 - 8 week postage time and I didn't want to risk it not arriving in time.

I turned to Pinterest and Google to provide me with some inspiration for a homemade outfit. I found the most perfect pattern for a princess dress over at Parties and Patterns. The pattern is downloadable for $5 and includes a step-by-step tutorial including photos. I am only a novice/very beginner sewer, and I managed to follow the pattern and complete two dresses - one for each daughter. I'm going to toot my own horn here, but I think they turned out fantastic! They were exactly what I wanted and each dress cost only $15 in materials. 

Both girls loved twirling around and dancing in their pretty dresses.

A dress fit for a princess

I used the leftover material for me eldest daughter's dress so it's a bit shorter than it's meant to be. Both dresses were made from the $5 pattern from Parties and Patterns

I made their crowns out of felt using this template. I used two layers of felt in different colours (one larger than the other) to make the crown more rigid, and sewed around the edges to stick them together. For the yellow crown I used elastic around the back, while the pink one had a felt band all the way around.

The Decorations

Trying to decorate a party area can really break the budget if you aren't careful. All of the pre-made decorations from the shops can add up very quickly and before you know it you've spent $100 on a few banners, balloons, and pom poms. I had a vision of how I wanted the party area to look like, but I was only going to be satisfied if it was done cheaply.

I happened upon a roll of pink plastic tablecloth which was 14 metres long for $5 from Woolworths. When I bought it, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to use it but it ended up being the most effective decoration. I used it to make curtains for our party area. I sewed a pocket/hem (I don't know the technical word for it) in the tablecloth for a curtain rod to fit through, and hung them up between two pillars. It gave the party area a really beautiful pink glow and it made it feel that little bit extra special. I used the leftover tablecloth as table runners for the food table, and party guest table.

Other decorations were tulle pompom strings, a birthday banner, string of photos as well as printable paper doll Disney princesses.

Curtains made from a $5 roll of plastic tablecloth. Very cheap but very effective!

Free printable princess birthday banner from Disney Baby

Another free printable from Disney Baby to make a princess castle table centerpiece.

Pink tulle pompoms, pink curtain, birthday banner and party table. I made the pompoms from two rolls of tulle for a total of $6.

The table setting. More details below.

 The table setting consisted of the following including prices and location:

• White table cloths were $10 from Kmart (These were borrowed from my Mum who purchased them at Christmas time);
• Pink table runner was made from the roll of plastic tablecloth for $5 from Woolworths;
• White paper doily placemats from Red Dot for $2.50 for a pack of 60;
• Large pink stripe paper plates from Coles - $2 for a pack of 20
• Small pink stripe paper plates from Coles - $2 a pack (I'm not sure how many was in the pack - maybe 24)
• Pink stripe napkins from Coles - $2 a pack
• Disney princess party hats (used as centrepieces) - $2 for a pack of 8 on clearance from Kmart.
• 3D paperdoll Disney princesses as part of the table center were free printables from Spoonful

Month by month photos of the birthday girl. I downloaded a free Disney font to put the month on each photo.

The food

I enjoy cooking so tried to make as much of the food from scratch as possible, this also helps to keep the cost of the party down. It does take a bit of preparation and time, so I made up some of the food the weekend before the party and kept it in the freezer until the day of the party. Most of the rest of the food was made the day before, which only left sandwiches to make on the day.

The food table. The food labels were a printable purchased from Etsy for $5. Again used the plastic table cloth as a table runner (Seriously the best $5 ever spent).

On the menu was the following:

• Sandwiches (ham, cheese and pickles, and chicken with avocado) - the initial plan was to use a crown shape cutter and have crown sandwiches, but I ran out of time, so they became just normal finger sandwiches.
• Sausage Rolls 
• Mini pizzas using "princess" cookie cutters to shape the pizza bases
• Spinach & Ricotta Rolls
• Spring rolls
• Fairybread - I tried to make fairy bread sushi, but that was a big fail as they kept unrolling, so it was just plain old triangles.
• Pink popcorn - This was so incredibly easy to make, and so delicious! Brought me back to my childhood and eating the shop bought candied popcorn. I quartered the recipe and it still made a huge bowlful. 
• Fruit wands - grapes and pineapple threaded on a skewer with a watermelon star (cut using a cookie cutter). Simple but effective.
• Jellycups - Made from two different pink coloured jellies. 
• Teacup cookies
• Cupcakes

The Cake

After making the dresses, all the decorations and all of the food, my interest in making a cake from scratch was waning. I cheated with the cake and used packets of cake mix and pre-made frosting. I layered the cakes, covered it in icing and added pink wafer cookies, little marshmallows and musk sticks to make a castle cake. The towers are just icecream cones covered in leftover icing and then rolled in 100's and 1000's. While using packet cake mix did save me some effort, the cake really lacked the tastiness you get from a homemade cake.

Thankyou Gift

Since everybody at the party were adults except my two daughters, I decided to make jars of "Princess" cookie mix as the take home Thankyou gift.

I had a lot of fun planning and preparing everything for this Princess Party. I hope some of these ideas give you some inspiration for your child's next birthday party. Now to plan my daughter's Minnie Mouse themed 3rd Birthday!

Kid Friendly Spaghetti Bolognaise Sauce

As a kid, my mum would cook spaghetti bolognaise ALL. THE. TIME. We had it so often, that by the time I was a teenager, I was well and truly sick of eating it. It became my least favourite food and it would almost bring about a gag reflex just thinking about it. It's only been the last few years (after about a 10 year protest), that I have begun to enjoy eating it again. 

My daughter (2.5 years old) is a snacker, so by the time dinner time comes around, she usually isn't interested. Spaghetti bolognaise however, is one of her favourites, and she will usually eat a bowls worth plus more! 

Here is the recipe for my daughters favourite meal:

Spaghetti Bolognaise Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbs Olive oil
• 20g butter
• 2 brown onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• 500g beef mince
• 3 Tbs Tomato Paste
• 1 Cup Beef Stock
• 800g Can Diced Tomatoes
• 1 Carrot grated
• 1 Zucchini grated
• 1 Tbs dried Oregano
• 2 Dried Bay Leaves

Method:

1. Heat oil and butter in a large frypan over medium-high heat
2. Add onion and garlic, cook, stirring until onion softens
3. Add the mince, cook, stirring until mince browns
4. Add tomato paste, stock, can tomatoes, carrot, zucchini, oregano and bay leaves. Stir to combine.
5. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve with cooked pasta.

Note:

I find this recipe is great for using up left over vegetables. I have added Eggplant, mushrooms, tomato, grated celery, frozen peas, and corn previously.

Rainbow Party

As my youngest daughter's first birthday nears closer, I am reminded of how we celebrated my eldest daughter's first birthday - with a rainbow themed party! The party took me about 2 months to prepare and plan, trawling the internet for free printables and recipe ideas.

I was pretty excited about my first child's first birthday. For me, it wasn't so much a celebration of her turning 1, but more that my husband and I had survived our first year as parents. A rainbow party seemed appropriate to sum up the year. Even though there were bad days, there was always a happy moment just around the corner waiting to shine through, much like a rainbow after the rain.

Here is the party in review, and I hope it can bring someone else a little inspiration for your child's next birthday party:

The Invite

Invite printable can be found here for free thanks to Babybites.

Envelope printable thanks to Paper Glitter

The card I used to back the paper invites was old cardboard file dividers that I had sourced from my work. 

The Decorations

The decorations ended up a bit underwhelming. I went for traditional balloons and streamers with some additional rainbow printable signs.

Helium Balloon kit available to purchase from Big W and Spotlight for $50

Rainbow Printable sign from Printabelle (This was free when I made it, but looks like it is now $5, or you can still  download it for free from Catch my Party)

The Drinks

A rainbow of drinks! I sourced these all from our local IGA. The water bottle labels and straw toppers are another free printable from Printabelle/Catch My Party.

The Food

A rainbow of vegetables with homemade pumpkin &pecan dip and tuna dip. The vegetables I used were Red Capsicum. Carrot, Yellow Capsicum, Celery and Purple carrots. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a blue vegetable to complete the rainbow.

I used a recipe from Taste.com.au for the Pumpkin and Pecan Dip (substituted the walnuts for pecans) as well as the Tuna dip.

Now on to the rainbow of fruit with a homemade honey and ricotta dip. Again the rainbow is missing the blue element as well as the purple. As the party was in winter, the selection of fruit available was limited, and I didn't want to have mushy defrosted blueberries on the plate. Fresh blueberries would work well when they are in season, and maybe plums for the purple fruit.

Unfortunately, I put my husband in charge of the photography on the day of the birthday, and I therefore don't have any other photos of the other food I prepared!

The other things I made were:

• Ham & Pineapple mini pizzas
• Sausage Rolls
• Pancetta & Leek Mini Quiches
• Tomato & Feta Mini Quiches
• Tuna Sushi Rolls & Avocado Sushi Rolls
• Roasted Vege & Feta Mini Pizza
• Spinach & Ricotta Rolls
• Chicken & Vegetable Rolls
• Strawberry, Lemon, Choc Mint and Blueberry Macarons (I can't believe hubby didn't take a photo of these! They were so much work!)

The Cake

One of the main inspirations for a rainbow party was the multi-layered rainbow cake.

I used a simple butter cake recipe (make twice the quantity), splitting it into 6 bowls and mixing in gel colouring to get the rainbow colours. I sourced the gel colouring from ebay, as it was a lot cheaper than buying anywhere I could find it in Australia.

The cake was finished off with a plain white buttercream icing.

I had never made a cake of this size before, and I was pleasantly surprised with the result, and so were the party guests when they saw the inside of the cake.

The Outfit

I ordered the cutest outfit for my daughter from Etsy, but it didn't arrive in time (infact it didn't end up arriving at all), so I had to make a mad dash to the shops the day before the party, hoping to find something rainbow coloured. Best and Less was a winner with a simple rainbow layered dress.

The outfit that never arrived :(

The gift bags and take home goodies

Rainbow playdough

Now to start planning the next lot of birthday parties.....

Funcakes

One of my favourite things to do at home is cook and bake. From about 18 months of age, my daughter has also wanted to help in the kitchen. In the early days she was happy to just watch , but as she's gotten a bit older and has a wider set of skills, she now likes to more actively participate. This normally involves putting the ingredients into the bowl and stirring it. I love being able to share this time with her, and hope that she'll end up with a passion for cooking like I have.

Today we got a little bit creative and made fun pancakes "funcakes". Basically, they are a simple pancake batter with added chosen extras (Recipe below). Today my daughter chose to add sprinkles, marshmallows and white choc chips. Yum! Other possible additions could be coconut, dried fruit, fresh fruit, frozen berries or anything else that takes your fancy. They could also end up savory if you wanted by adding cheese, ham, olives etc. They can be as healthy or naughty as you want. Lay out a few ingredients for your child/ren to chose from, and let their stomachs and imagination decide. 

Funcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Self Raising Flour
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Egg
• Butter
• Toppings

Whisk together Flour, Milk and Egg. Heat up a pan and add butter. When butter has melted, add a scoop of pancake batter. Add extra toppings. Cover with additional pancake batter. Flip pancake when bubbles form in the batter. Cook for another minute or so. Voila!

This recipe made 2 large pancakes, but should stretch out to 3 or 4 normal sized.