The Secret to a Successful Birthday Party….

Well, I don’t really have the secret to a successful party but I am feeling pretty pleased with myself after the success of Miss Frugal’s 8th Birthday pamper party this afternoon.  All seven girls who were invited turned up (I always worry everyone will forget) and we were having that much fun that the two hours flew by.  Everyone’s just left and I thought I’d have a nice cuppa before I get started with Operation Clean Up 😉 

At one point I thought the party was destined to be a disaster, first the hairdressers I booked for the party closed down, then I got an ear infection which meant I’ve been in agony for the last couple of days and yesterday Mr Frugal found out he couldn’t have the day off work after all but we ended up having so much fun that I was surprised when parents started to arrive to collect their kids.

I had planned to make the cake myself as the lovely Nickie suggested I made a cake in the shape of an 8 – She even managed to tell me how to do it in 140 characters on Twitter 😉  However, thanks to my poorly ears I haven’t had the energy to make it so I ended up buying a Hello Kitty cake (I know, #frugalmummyfail) which was really cute but possibly not worth the £7.99 that we paid for it! 

One of my lovely friends offered to come and do the pampering on the girls when we found out the hairdressers we had booked had closed down so we decided to hold the party at home and thinking about it, I’m pleased with the way it worked out.  For starters, my house has never looked as clean as there’s no greater motivation to tidy your house than people coming round….

My friend curled, straightened or plaited everyones hair, painted their nails and put a little bit of make up on them all and they loved it.  I would have paid £10 a head at the hairdressers (no food included) and she refused to take any money off me when she was done, although I did manage to force a £20.00 note into her hand as she was leaving.  She was so good and all the girls loved her, a couple of the parents who stayed even asked me if I could give them her details!

We didn’t do too much food as I always find that so much food gets wasted at kids parties as they just want to get on with playing.  I made ham, egg and tuna buns, bought a big packet of Monster Munch, some sausage rolls, mini chocolate muffins, cucumber sticks, strawberries and cherry tomatoes.

I made a batch of fairy cakes that Miss Frugal iced this morning and we put them into these really cute cupcake holder things that we got from Morrisons and scattered them around the table.

We got some tall plastic glasses and filled them to about a third full with strawberry jelly and when that had set, we topped the glasses up with strawberry Angel Delight – very pink and girly and very popular!

I had a bit of a cake trauma when I realised I’d forgotton to buy napkins to wrap the cake in for the party bags, the only thing I had in was toilet roll….  It’s OK though, I didn’t use that, I thought it would be better to just pretend I’d forgotton to put the cake in the bags.

Our party bags were fantastic (modest, aren’t I?), I was going to ask Jen from The Madhouse (she’s very clever you know – check out The Madhouse Makes)  to make some of her lovely pencil case rolls for everyone but then I found some Sugar Cubes on offer at Toys R Rus.  Sugar Cubes are bracelets with a cube on them that has an animation in the front of it.  You can change the animation by pressing the buttone and for £1.50 each, they were such a bargain that I bought one for everyone.  Miss Frugal also made everyone a friendship bracelet and I got some really cheap reduced Disney Princess pens, pencils and rubbers.  The only sweets I put in were candy bracelets as I think kids are hyper enough after parties without sending them on their way with more sugar.

All in all, the party was a success and Miss Frugal loved it, which is the most important thing.  I took this picture of her laughing with one of her friends and I love it – it sums up all the fun she had this afternoon.

Happy Birthday Miss Frugal