Category Archives: Party Planner
Halloween Cakes
Continuing on from my last post
Many, Many cakes…
All lifting out of their cases
Why do my cupcakes lift away from their cases? I’ve done a little research and it appears that the moister the cake batter, the more likely it will be that the cases will lift away from the finished article. The choice is either delicious moist cakes or dryer more beautiful ones…
As these cakes are going to be eaten today I decided to do away with the papers.
I whipped up a batch of chocolate buttercream icing
Impressive spooky icing fog
and applied a layer of frosting to each cake…
YUM!
and then got on with creating the owl cupcakes. I halved 2 oreos and pressed a brown m&m into each half to create the eyes. I then placed an orange m&m for a beak.
Ta-DA! Oh! Isn't it CUTE?
The oreo baked into the bottom of the cakes worked really well too
Hoorah!
The fairy cakes are obviously too small for such decoration, so I improvised and used some of the broken oreo cookies as gravestones, and added some pre-made sugarpaste decorations.
Pumpkin on grave...woooOOOooooo
And so I’m done with the cakes.
So, so sweet
Various decorations
And now to get on with EVERYTHING ELSE.
Wish me luck!
Last Minute Halloween
Despite all my frownings and pronouncements to the contrary, I have decided to get into the spirit (see what I did there?) of Halloween and we have a small party planned for TOMORROW.
I’m like Ebenezer Scrooge on Halloween, and I have been visited by the ghost of Halloween Past.
That's right people. TWO boxes of Halloween stuff.
As I wrangled the boxes from the loft, one of the lids came free and my “spells” book fell out
COWER IN FEAR LOWLY READERS!
The Past showed me this book that I made, back when the children were very small (I think this dates from 2005) and needed some kind of instruction on party throwing. I remember making this book using a few sheets of black tissue paper, a blank book with lined paper and plenty of sloppy glue. I scrunched the paper up, and layered it onto the book and 6 years later it’s still here.
So the book fell open on the loft ladder at this page and reminded of me of my lovely plan to read various rhymes before playing each game. I was to be the Head Witch and would read the games out in rhyme (like some sort of FOOL) and the small children would obey me…
Touching, no?
LOOK! I put little time reminder’s in the corner of the pages…how sweet and naive I was back then. *sigh*. Of course I faltered when actually confronted by a group of 5 year olds and although I followed the top tip of dusting a tiny amount of flour on the first sheet of paper and blowing (which makes a brilliant cloud of “dust”) before I started reading, I soon found myself flicking through the book in search of something ever more exciting as the children demolished the table of food and ran a circuit of madness from the front room/kitchen/hall.
Even so, the book reminded me of the effort I have always made for Halloween and shamed me.
AND WE’RE BACK!
So first up. Pumpkin Carving. I got two fab shaped examples. One squat, one long, and part one of tonight’s plan is to carve them:
An uncomfortable duo
So first you cut a lid, simple enough. Use a sharp large knife, and I use the same large knife to make an initial cut into the fibrous centre of the squash and to ease the removal of the crappy/seedy innards. I have bothered, in the past, to remove the seeds and toast them – Total. Waste. Of. Time. They just irritated me. Don’t bother.
Cut with a knife, then scrape with a big spoon
So, then I scrape the insides with a big metal spoon (serving size if you want to be precise). Oliver got involved and took charge of the smaller, squatter pumpkin. He ended up wearing rubber gloves (THE MASSIVE GIRL) as the scrape and pull method was just not working for him. I’d recommend not being too squeamish and getting right in there.
"IT WILL TAKE FOREVER" I scream..then hand over the rubber gloves
So once we’d scraped and scraped we could start carving. I decided that the long pumpkin should be inverted to make a more realistic “head” shape. Oliver decided to draw his design in Permanent Marker pen. We’re both idiots.
Brilliant
Ah, but you see, Jack ‘O Lanterns are most effective once lit, and so it was time for our traditional “turn all the lights off, light the pumpkins” moment.
That squat one needs a bit of work to be honest.
Sod it. Let’s move onto the cakes…
Oh! so I want to make cupcakes with an oreo biscuit in the bottom and I am deeply impressed by these owl cupcakes which also uses Oreo Cookies. SCORE! I can get them in Poundland.
I line a deep muffin tray with crappy Halloween cases and add half an oreo to each case.
Yeah. OH BABY...YEAH
I make a basic chocolate cake batter and then *DUN DEEE DAH!!!!*
I see a cosmic sign. A symbol of the Goddess. A sign of something strong and feminine shining at me from my mixing bowl. Some see Dead People, some see Jesus in a piece of toast, some see Mary in a Tortilla…
I AM WOMAN. HEAR ME ROAR!
I see boobs in batter. Moving on.
So I add the Booby Batter to the cases and bake
Beautiful smooth tops
And as they bake I make a second batch of smaller cakes – fairy ones. OH YES FAIRY CAKES ARE BACK!
Aw
I still had a small amount of batter left, so I crushed up the tops of the Oreo cookies I had left over and added them to the mixture before filling a remaining three cases and baking
*drool*
I now have many cakes. MANY MANY CAKES. All of which require icing and decorating.
I’ll be back…
Something Wicked This Way Comes. Invitations.
OH NOES! (Is that make up making those bags under my eyes? WHO KNOWS?)
Hallowe’en
My favourite party of the year approaches.
I have three boxes worth of hallowe’en junk decorations and they are brought down from the shed every year with the same reverence as our Christmas Decorations. Hallowe’en has become a traditional party at our home since Tom first started school.
I haven’t started planning this year’s bash yet, but thought I might write a post on the parties gone by and hopefully kick start some ideas for this year.
So let’s start with the Invitations.
In 2008 we made invitations which appeared to be an old letter written 100 years ago. Our address was printed in the top left hand corner of the page – and the invitation was written as a plea from me for help for my son, Oliver. It read:
Date – 1st November 1908
Dear Friend
I write to you to ask for your help. My son, Oliver, has been acting strangely since his birthday in August. He cannot sleep, he hates garlic, he is very pale and his teeth have become very pointed.
I fear that since his eighth birthday he has become…A VAMPIRE! I am sure that he will roam for the next one hundred years, and ask that you answer this call from the past to save him!
I ask you to come to my home to help us.
The Date – 1st November 2008
Time – 5 O’clock to 7 O’Clock
Please wear fancy dress, this may prevent Oliver from sucking your blood!
I humbly ask you to tell me if you can attend either by:
Telegram – mobile number
Telephone – landline
or by tearing off the bottom of this letter and returning by carrier pigeon.
I beg you for your help
Lady Party Spanner (Scared)
———————————————
Tear off strip
Carrier pigeon
I _________________ will be able to come to save Oliver from a fate worse than death
We soaked the invitations in cold coffee (should have been tea)
That's going to hum something awful. You should have used tea. Just Sayin
And then, I made the boys use a hairdryer to dry the invitations. HA HA HA! I have no idea what the hell was running through my head at this point. Why I didn’t just leave them hanging around until they just dried out, I do not know.
*evil laugh*
*even bigger evil laugh*
We were then left with some beautiful, if slightly caffeine-y ,old letters
Suitably crumpled
When they were dry *snort*, I rolled the letters into scrolls and sealed them with red sealing wax.
In 2009, I produced a newspaper page as an invitation.
The title was The Daily Spook and the page was set up as Classified Advertisements. Like this:
GHOST INVESTIGATORS WANTED
We are being haunted by a very naughty spirit. It leaves lights on in rooms, it leaves taps running in the bathroom, I find dirty clothes in piles on the landing floor.
PLEASE HELP ME! If you think you can get to the bottom of our haunting please come to <address> on <date> at<time> Please wear fancy dress, this might scare the ghost into behaving itself! Please reply via text <mobile> or direct to the Daily Spook offices <landline> They will pass your messages onto us. All ghostbusters to be collected at <time> by which time I sincerely hope the house will be clean and tidy and free of ghosts.
I filled the rest of the page up with silly adverts such as:
FOR SALE
1 vacuum cleaner. The salesman told me I could fly through the cleaning, but the cord was too short. I’m going back to the broomstick.
Reply to: Ms W. Itch
and
MUSIC LESSONS!
Professional and experienced skeleton has vacancies for music lessons in trom-BONE
Reply to PO Box B0N35
And arranged (by amazing use of the tab key and quite a lot of swearing, backspacing and general pissiness) until I had a page that looked like a section of adverts.
Yes, yes, they may be old jokes, but only to old ears.
Last year we sent out invitations in text speak. Green letters on a black background which warned party comers of an evil computer that had imprisoned us in a Matrix type web.
I had an amazing response via text – lots of parents got right into the swing of the invite and responded in text speak and…
oh.
So this year…Well, I’m catering for 14 year olds and 11/12 year olds. I think I can let the cute stuff pass us by now and get into the real ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE stuff. Or maybe the SERIAL KILLER WITH SCARY KENWOOD CHEF DEVICES.
Or maybe I’ll just point them towards the huge and depressing debts they’ll rack up at university?
(little bit of politics)
A Sopranos Dinner Party?
So the beach party is over…and my mind turns (as always) to the next party I’d like to throw.
I want to do a Soprano’s dinner party, but without the guns and prostitutes.
There are tons of authentic Southern Italian recipes on the internet. I am particularly drawn to Bracicole for the main and maybe some ziti. I haven’t decided on starters or desserts.
Lots of lovely red wine to drink, some grappa maybe? Sicilian lemonade for the non drinkers.
A couple of games of poker with cigars obligatory.
Hmmmm. Yes, I think I can do something with this idea.
How to throw a tropical beach party
*whimpers*
As I write this blog, I am gazing about like a blinking owl. My left leg hurts and Oliver is still in bed (at two O’clock in the afternoon). The kitchen still looks like a hurricane of food has blown through it and the back garden…the less I say about that the better. I think we can safely say that the party was a ROARING SUCCESS.
I woke up horrifically early yesterday morning with a jolt. The night before had been spent cooking batches of cupcakes and I had completely forgotten to wrap Olly’s presents and so, I started the day in a frenzied search for some sellotape (which by the way, should be featured in Harry Potter books as an example of an amazing disappearing substance. It doesn’t matter how much of it I buy, I can never bloody find ANY OF IT when I need to) which I couldn’t locate and so ended up wrapping his gifts which craft glue. A great start to the day, I’m sure you agree.
The morning was spent icing cupcakes and cornets filled with sweets and decorating the shed/playhouse.
*cracks whip*
The beach hut (Yes, I STILL know it's a shed)
It's like we're in Hawaii
As I had decided that the food was going to comprise of burgers, hotdogs and sausages in buns the food preparation was at a minimum. This left me time to decorate the front garden and to force Tom into blowing up an inflatable banana the size of a lilo.
They look as deflated as each other.
Time then warped and suddenly people were arriving. Family members dropped by to give cards and presents to the birthday boy in advance of the party, the entertainer arrived and then the guests started flooding in. I realised that I had no idea how many people were going to descend as I hadn’t received many RSVPs (Quick note here – please respond to invitations, it makes life so much easier for the person throwing the party) and was greatly relived that more than 3 children turned up.
The entertainer was just…brilliant. 11 is a difficult age. The disparity between the more knowing and mature girls, and the boys (who spent at least half an hour wrestling and throwing plums from the tree at each other) who are in the main, still children, means that there is awkward balance to strike. Michelle (for that was her name) managed this beautifully and the kids all got really involved in the karaoke and competitions.
Every child in the universe knows the moves to cha cha slide (or whatever it's called)
God knows what song this was. It sounded like a bunch of noise to me *my mother*
So while the kids were doing the limbo, screeching Justin Bieber songs and throwing plums at each other generally having a good time, I got on with the food.
Deciding on providing hot food was just plain stupid. Why I thought that this would lessen the load on the day is now, with hindsight, completely beyond me. Am I actually mental?
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
The spread
The entertainer had to leave (BOO!) and there was still an hour to go before the party ended.
There was only one option left open to me…
Lock them in the shed...
This worked really well until they escaped and run amok with water pistols
They're out of control!
This was actually my favourite part of the whole day. To see these kids – some of whom have been coming to our parties since they were 5 – running and laughing and being children again was just…amazing and surprisingly touching.
And so, the time for it all to end was upon us.
Oliver blew out his candles…
Blowing out the candles
The children left, each and every one thanking me for a good time.
Po emerged from his hiding place…
You can come out now elderly cat
And I put my feet up, drank a glass or two of wine and fell into my bed in a messy mess.
This morning, Olly got a text from one of his friends that simply said:
“Your [sic] party was epic”
It’s the final countdown…
It’s the party tomorrow.
To say that I am not quite ready for it would be a staggering understatement.
Somehow I have failed to arrange:
1) The Food
2) The cakes
3) The decorations
4) Presents
And I’m at work today.
So.
Yeah.
Pray for me.
Totally Tropical Invitations.
I bow to one person asking public demand and get back onto the track of the blog MOMENTARILY give you an update on the invitations and preparations for Oliver’s beach party.
If you have no idea what I’m going on about have a look here and here.
I found a brilliant website called Party Packs and found foldable cardboard surfboards and inflatable parrots and straw skirts and and and…
So, I placed an order and it arrived very quickly.
Yeah. Look at all that LOOT
You’ll noticed that I was so excited I didn’t even clear the iron away. Yeah. That’s like, that’s an indicator of my excitement. Iron Clearage. *cough*
So we pretty much got everything out of the box and shouted at each other stuff like “LOOK! AN INFLATABLE BANANA!” “OH MY GOD. GIANT SUNGLASSES!”
Let's get everything out of the box and scatter it across the front room. Sounds like a plan.
And then I made Oliver put all the leis on
Lei down. Yeah, I went there.
And then we packed everything back into the box and put it somewhere. I think down the shed/playhouse. Or maybe in the loft. Or under the stairs. Anyway, WHATEVER, it’ll turn up.
I have started some serious work on the invitations.
It's WORK
I had a small problem with the glue (and not because I’m on it)
It looks like a disease. It's not. It's superglue. I am a relentless twat.
And have managed to finish half of them…
Check these babies out
See those fabulous little life preservers and sunglasses and palmtrees? We made those. We are totally amazing.
Only another 10 to go and I’m done
Another ten to go...
We’re getting there!
Beach Party Invitations or Oh Dear Lord the madness is upon me…
So. Oliver turns 11 in August, and he moves onto secondary school in September.
All of the parties that I have thrown for him and his primary school friends have been building towards THIS PARTY. (You can read about my angst here)
We’re going on a family holiday at the end of July, so I need to be really on top of my game to get the invitations out and get everything arranged. Bearing this in mind, I called a party entertainer today. I’ve decided that I want to enjoy this party, and the best way to do this is to get someone else to do it help. Somewhat embarrassingly, when the lovely lady asked me about the details of the party – I burst into wracking sobs. *shocked face*
Me: “It’s hu huuh hh..is eleventh birthday *WAIL* and this is th the the LAST PARTYYYY! *sniff*”
Lady: “…..”
Me: “Sorry”
I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns up on the day with a knife tucked into her socks in order to deal with me.
Moving on…
Today was also the day that I went to HobbyCraft and spent a stupid amount of money on crafty crap.
See that pen? I have many, many pens, but when you walk into HobbyCraft they squirt you with an odourless, invisible gas that turns you into a CraftZombie. One minute you’re a normal person who watches DVD’s and The Apprentice in their free time, the next moment you find yourself gazing vacantly at a cardboard mask while gently stroking a pack of feathers. I should never go in HobbyCraft. It makes me want to do knitting, crocheting, painting, jigsaws, jewellery making and..most disturbing of all, SEQUIN ART. FFS.
I also bought some sandpaper. Not from HobbyCraft, but from ASDA – Only a quid! Bargain (also I got three bottles of wine for a tenner *double thumbs up*)
So I started on the invitations..
Not bad, for the first draft
That’s a little square of sandpaper there in the middle. The card opens up and all the information about the party is on the inside. I’ve gone with a “Beach Hut” thing (Beach Hut = Shed/Playhouse)
Invite
The Beach hut at <address>
will open on <date of party> at <start time> until <end time>
Dress Code – Something summery!
RSVP details
SURF’S UP!
—————————————————————————————————————————————
There’s something missing though…As I looked through the bags of little sticky on-ny beach stuff I had bought, I realised that it’s just not colourful enough. And so…the madness begins.
On my last trip to HobbyCraft I bought a bunch of FIMO, ostensibly for Oliver, but c’mon, let’s be honest – I became a CraftZombie. I made these with it:
Don't ask...
If you don’t know what FIMO is, (and, why would you? Unless you’ve been in HobbyCraft, in which case you’ve probably got your own embarrassing collection of models) then have a click. FIMO is basically a modelling clay which you can harden in the oven.
I wonder if you can guess where I’m going with this?
Yes. I have forced my children into slave labour to help me make our own sticky on-ny things to stick on invitations. I feel shame.
He's still in his school uniform *sob*
*Doorslam*
But now we have…
Ah, aren't they wondrous?
You see?
MADNESS.
A Royal Wedding Party
Union Jack. On a Shoe.
I wasn’t very excited about the recent(ish) Royal Wedding. I wasn’t one of those people saying stuff like “BOO! TAX PAYERS MONEY! BLOODY ARISTROCRACY” or anything, I just couldn’t really summon up much enthusiasm.
That was until we decided to invite my Nana to come and stay for the week.
Suddenly, I was effervescent! YAY! ROYAL WEDDING!
I decided that I was going to bake a cake, we were going to have a “spread” and champagne and watch the coverage on the TV and have some champagne and tie up bunting outside and have some champagne.
YAY!
The cake I decided to bake was from the lovely book by Lorraine Pascale called “Baking Made Easy” which is from her BBC TV series. I really fell a little bit in love with Lorraine while watching her cookery series, and was delighted when I received her book for my birthday (a week before the wedding) There isn’t anything much nicer than a brand new cookery book to flick through, and despite being on a permadiet, I especially love drooling over cake recipes.
Her website is http://www.lorrainepascale.com/ (HOLY SHIT! Did I just make a link? WOW!)
Anyway. The cake I wanted to make is a plain chocolate sponge with inches of buttercream and chocolate cigarillos around the outside. You can fill the top (there’s a gap between the top of the cake and the top of the cigarillos) with anything really…flowers, fruit, sweets…anything, and I decided that I wanted two tone cigarillos, white and milk chocolate and to bring the cake into the patriotic theme, I filled it with fresh strawberries and blueberries.
I made this.
I got the cigarillos from http://www.chocolatetradingco.com/chocolates/ingredients/cigarellos-curls?gclid=COm_pKqnqakCFQNP4Qod1iIHLA (Getting flash now) and they arrived really quickly.
We put bunting up outside the night before the Big Day (and I must confess that it is still hanging forlornly from one end of our down pipe – *SHAME*) and bought in some nice party food from the high street.
We were up early and settled down to watch the coverage – and thoroughly enjoyed it.
By the way did you see this:
I MADE THIS
I made that cake. Pretty amazing, yes?
So, we watched the wedding, popped the champagne when they came out of the church and the crowd roared and…ah. It was lovely.
Ma had actually bought special “Celebration” glasses to drink the champagne from
*cough* IgnoreTheMug *cough*
So, we drank some more champagne when they emerged onto the balcony.
And a little bit more when they kissed
And a little bit more when they kissed again
And we laughed when Prince Phillip clearly went “RIGHT! I’ve had enough of all this, let’s go and eat!” (like Frank off Everybody Loves Raymond) and they all shuffled back inside.
And then I made Nana try on my original 50′s glasses
Champagne makez everfing funneee
And then I had some pink wine (I think)
And we watched Prince William (um, Duke of Cambridge or whatever his name is now) drive the beautiful Kate back home in that car and it was brilliant…and then I had some more wine.
And then I forced the boys outside to take a photo of them and Nana and the bunting
Seriously, this photo is uncomfortable to look at. Sorry Boys!
And then I think we had some more food and we definitely had some more cake. Oh did you see the cake?
Did I mention that I made this cake?
And we had a lovely day and it was great.
(And even though we had to call an ambulance for Nana at 1 O’Clock in the morning because she was very poorly and that bit was really shit, but she’s OK now, it was still a Good Day)
A 60th Birthday Party or How not to act in a quite nice hotel
Jun 11
Posted by Party Spanner
Note how I cleverly flashed out the age
When my mum’s 60th year rolled around, we decided to throw a party. This time though, we weren’t going to cobble together a bunch of crappy decorations made out of computer printouts and vegetables. This time we were going to be classy.
So, we booked a function room in our local Marriot and arranged for our family to stay overnight.
Cake
I ordered a cake from a bakery (no LumpOCake for mum – Oh no..)
Fruit cake. Which, I'm sure we all agree, is the Devil's favourite cake, and therefore..EVIL
Isn’t it pretty? But don’t be fooled – underneath that immaculate icing and edible flower spray is fruit cake. Not only fruit cake, but also marzipan. It’s like seeing a lovely plate of steak and chips only to discover that the steak is made of ear wax and the chips are made from parsnips. (Parsnips being the worse option in this scenario – obviously)
Decorations
We decorated the function room as best as we could, which to be frank, wasn’t terrific. Why are function rooms in hotels so unremittingly depressing? What is it about them? Is it the ghosts of a thousand work christmas parties, each with it’s own inevitable puddle of regretful snogging? Or maybe it’s the slight whiff of despair which lingers after a hundred Motivational Sales Training Courses. Who knows?
Can you smell it?
The Party
We got dressed in our finest clothes. I was forced into some fairly heavy duty foundation garments, which resulted in an inability to breathe, bend over or dance with any sort of elegance (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) and the boys were looking sharp.
Don't we scrub up well? (Olly's eyes look weird - damn you red eye extractor)
Somehow we ended up with a female DJ. I have no idea how this happened as I’m sure they’re about as rare as decent meal in Frankie & Benny’s, but I was obviously striking a blow for gender equality. GO ME! She was fab and kept the party dancing. We ran a free bar, and I seemed to have really got into the “Free Bar” thing – clearly I forgot that I was paying for the “Free Bar” at the end of the night, but my brain seemed to filter out this vital piece of information and just heard “YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE MONEY AT THE BAR! DRINK SOMETHING REALLY EXPENSIVE! IT’S FREEEEEEE!!” which resulted in some peculiar combinations and some quite horrendous choices.
MALIBU? What kind of sick mind would be....oh
The evening went well, everyone had a good time – Nana (of 50′s glass fame )had a boogie and everyone enjoyed the bar.
3 generations of awkward looking women
The flash makes this look as though we were dancing under much fluorescent tube lighting
Many empty bottles of many different drinks
So. Finally the DJ packed up her equipment and people started heading home. I decided at this point that there was only one way to get back to my room.
HOME JEEVES!
I’m at a bit of a loss how to end this post. I guess I could say something trite about “Good Time Had By All” or maybe something like “Wordy word word word” but instead, I think I will ask you to have a look at the new and AMAZING twitter and Facebook buttons. You can now comment from your twitter account or Facebook and I would LOVE to hear from you if you like the blog – if you hate it? Then I’m not so keen – KEEP YOUR BLOODY OPINIONS TO YOURSELF. *winky emoticon* ..No. I actually mean it. *serious face*
The End
Posted in Party Planner
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Tags: balloons, bar, Birthday, comments, dancing, DJ, facebook, function. cake, hotel, party, twitter