Beautiful Butterfly Party

Last week my baby girl turned 3! No more babies in this house! As I have said before, our party philosophy is a big party bi-annually and every other year has a small celebration with family and 1 or 2 special friends. This makes it sustainable for elaborate party planners such as myself, and we also feel it demonstrates to the children that your party doesn't have to have 100 people at it for you to celebrate.

Excitedly awaiting the guests arrival...

Our children are responsible for a lot of the party planning and have a great sense of pride over the party when it is complete. This year Matilda choose a Butterfly Party. Her description was a "butterfly party and a butterfly cake with a princess and lots of butterflies everywhere. I want the party food to be watermelon and chocolate strawberries". EASY!! YAY!! My mind goes in to overdrive and the Butterfly Party takes shape. This year I invested in (and fell in love with) a butterfly paper stamp.... what fun you can have! How creative you can be!

So here it is..... Matilda's Beautiful Butterfly Party....

The Decorations
- White paper lanterns with tissue paper butterflies glued to the outside (very pretty in the breeze)

- Strings of butterflies made out of scrap booking card, hot glued along kitchen twine 









- Card butterflies on twisty straws
















The Cake
I had my first go at doing a 2 tiered cake, and once again really enjoyed the creativity that White Icing allows!




The Party Bags
I always have fun creating the party bags and so do the kids. We have a chat about what their friends might like as a thank you for coming to celebrate their birthday. There is always much excitement creating them. With this amount of thought and ownership, the kids then have a sense of pride as they excitedly present their friends with the gift. 

This year inside the party bags was: butterfly stickers, bubbles, balloons, glittery pencil, sparkly pen, a little chocolate, a lolly pop, a tiny glass jar with fairy glitter in it, and a few butterflies. 

Each of the guests also got to take home a set of butterfly wings, wands and headband. I got these from a bulk supplier and it was just lovely everyone being able to don a pair of wings and get in the mood :)


The Activities
Well having butterflies as the umbrella theme made this section of the planning rather easy! We don't do party games, particularly at this age. I want to enjoy the party to, not just be there as an 'entertainer'. So while at the party we: 


- Had pink sparkle play-dough with pipe cleaners and googly eyes



- Collaged big butterflies



- Made button and crepe paper flowers


- Made 'drifty' tissue paper butterflies



- Had water play, with plastic butterflies and real gerbras


- Had a wealth of dress ups, and,


- our usual cubby and sandpit, which is always a hit.










The Food
As requested we had the watermelon and chocolate strawberries that Matilda wanted, but we also put a butterfly spin on a few other choices. butterfly gingerbread, flower quiches etc... all a bit of fun :) 




















The Wind Down
The party went really well. The kids had a nice time and I think the adults did also. It was a VERY hot day but we survived and the party was lucky enough to be blessed by a few real butterflies who came to visit our garden during the party.


I always like that time in a party when the hype dies down and everyone relaxes into a spot or a game and really gets to spend some time with each other. 

So much fun! I love organising kids parties, the possibilities are endless!

Bush Camp Crafts

Children have an innate need to collect things. When I do the washing I am continuously removing, stones, pine cones, seed pods, leaves what's ever was irresistible, from my children's pockets.

I love this process as it shows me that their eyes are open... They are taking in the world around them with that wonderful sense of wonder. Something catches their eye and they find it so irresistible that they just have to pick it up, hold it, examine it, and keep it safe in their pocket for later.  I think I am probably so partial to this as am a bit of a pocket collector myself :)

You can see the great joy in children's hearts when we then use these treasure to make things. We have a few simple  craft items in our stash when we travel and these get used time and time again.

Here is a few of the camp crafts we get busy with:


Mobiles/Wind Chimes
Cotton twine or fishing line
1 stick
Pocket full of treasures

We tie one long piece of string from one end of the stick to the other. Then all along the space in-between we tie  our treasures. This can either be simple, one  treasure/one string, or more complex tying treasures at intervals along the string.

Sometimes we make large communal ones and put a tag at the end of it with the name of where all the parts were collected from. We have a number of these at home, which is really nice way to remember a holiday or special place.

One beach camping Christmas we made long strings of beach treasures and tied them all around the communal tarp. We then threaded vine around and some coloured lanterns and it was very festive and rather beautiful!

Clay Prints
Air drying clay or natural clay found in the ground
Pocket full of treasures
String/ wire

We make round flat (1cm thick) 'plates'. We put a hole all the war through the top, like a pencil hole. Then we use our treasures to make imprints in the clay. Once finished we leave it to dry. Once dry we tie some string on it and hang it in a tree or somewhere important to the maker of the print.

Stone Stacks
Lots of stones

My two are particularly fond of collecting stones. At times a can clear a whole bucket full out of the back of my car!

So just like you would with building blocks you encourage the kids to stack the stones, large up to small. How many can you get to balance  in a tower?

Stick Strings
This is a more long term project but I have a friend who's son likes to collect sticks as much as my kids like to collect stones. She was lamenting as to what to do with their stick pile. I suggested that she could drill a hole in each one, write in small black texta on it where it came from and thread them all on a long string that hangs in his room. This idea was taken with great enthusiasm as it encouraged him to collect smaller 5 cm long sticks and gave a neat and interesting place for all the sticks to live. This family does a lot of bush walking and their son now has a stunning looking, 2m long collection of sticks hanging on his wall. It is amazing the differences in colours, textures and shapes sticks are form different regions. We as adults wouldn't always notice this as we never see them all together!

Collage
Glue
Paper
Pocket full of treasures.

As the wonderful Jeanie Baker demonstrates, we can do marvelous things with collage. Some treasures have greater success being glued down than others but experiment and find out!!

Bush Prints
Paint
Paper
Pocket full of treasures

Not a complex one, you dip the treasures in paint and use them to print on the paper. Leaves, pine needles and feathers make particularly good 'paint brushes'

Rainbow Rocks
As collectors of many rocks, I have had to come up with a lot of inspiration in this area :)

Paint
Larger rocks
Paint brushes

This is simply rock paintings. We make all sorts of creatures or 'pets' out of ours. Sometimes we paint them beautifully and hide them back in the bush and theorize about what we think the animals might thing when they find them!

Acorn Creatures
Living in the Acorn capital of Australia - Canberra, I clean out as many acorns, during acorn season as I do stones!

We find 'hats' to fit the acorns, glue them on and draw faces on them! You can make whole families!!

There are many more, but until the next installment I will leave you with these!

What crafty things do you do with a pocket full of treasures? I would love to expand my collection!!!

The Party Was A BLAST!!

I wrote this post the other day but somehow it disappeared! So here we go again :)

We have an agreement in our household that we give the kids a 'BIG' birthday bash every second year. On the alternate years we have a more laid back, casual, family and best friend occasion. I put a lot of myself into these parties and so doing it bi-annually keeps it sustainable :)

So it works out that the kids have parties for their 1st (gotta celebrate the first), 3rd (first time they have a say in how things go), and 5th (preschool/school friends become all important) birthdays.

The kids have a big say in their parties. They decide what 'theme' they would like and then in consultation with me, design activities that they think their friends will enjoy while at the party. They also design great party bags to give their friends as a gift.

I have found this a brilliant learning process. The kids not only have a great sense of ownership over their big day, but they also have practise in thinking about others, increasing their sense of empathy. This year we heard the benefits of this as Orlando was planning his 5th birthday bash. He was heard say, "I think my friends are really going to enjoy..." and, "How excited will they be when I give them this special gift" and "My heart feels good making these presents"... My heart likes hearing this :)

My philosophy, when it comes to designing children's birthday parties, is to develop a range of engaging experiences for the children to immerse them selves in through out the party. We don't have competitive party games or games where you receive a prize, as I think they are a whole lot of unneeded effort. Kids are competitive enough, I don't want to support and encourage that mindset.

So Orlando is turning 5! This has brought up a whole lot of reflection on my part but I will save that for another post...

So what party did Orlando choose?

A ROCKET PARTY!!! 

So we made a Rocket Cake - My first attempt using fondant icing.... I love it, no returning now!)

Invitations: We had a lot of fun writing this but I was so immersed that I miss-spelt my own son's name! OPPS!!

Activities:

Space Playdough

2 cup white flour

1/2 cup of salt

4 tbls cream of tartar

2 cup water

2 tbsp oil

Colouring

Silver stars

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a medium pot. Add water, oil and food colouring. Cook and stir over medium heat. When mixture forms a ball in the pot, turn out and knead on a lightly floured surface. Knead through stars. Store in airtight container or plastic bag.

Alien Slime

1C Cornflour

1C Water

Colouring

Mix together with a fork, add more flour if too wet or more water if too stiff. You are aiming for the consistency of thick PVA glue. Makes a big mess but washes easily off in water J

Moon Sand

Mix together:

4 cups sand

2 cups cornflour

1 cup of water

Colouing (optional)

Star Stickers

Black Paper

Selection of Star Stickers

Space Shapes

Various Art materials

Cardboard cut outs in Space shapes

Human Rockets

Hope on the trampoline, put your arms about your head and blast off!! How high can you get??

Dramatic Pay

We are lucky enough to have a beautiful cubby that happens to be easily 'rocket-ish'. It is next to a sandpit which we turned into the moon!

Rocket Launching Station

We collected a variety of rockets. Pop rockets, very popular balloon rockets, air rockets all sorts!

Bi-Carb Mini Rockets

You need:

Film Canister

Toilet Paper

Vinegar

Bi-Carb Soda

Steps to Launch:

-       Fill film canister ½ full of vinegar

-       Lay toilet paper over opening

-       Place ½ teaspoon of bi-carb on top of toilet paper

-       Replace film canister lid firmly

-       Invert, place on ground and RUN!!

We had a blast and Orlando felt very special, couldn't of asked for more!


Matilda has already started planning hers. Apparently were having a Fairy Ballerina Tea Party.... My brain is already ticking....