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Following the outline of se7en steps to a great party on our practical party page lets plot and plan a Valentine Party in Se7en Steps…

Step 1: Invitation: Keep it simple, keep it pretty, keep it pink.

Step 2: Party Starter: This party cries out for face paints as its party starter, little red and white hearts and you are good to go!

Also, in a party when you know that they are going to be creating goodies to take home you need to consider how they are going to transport things – egg boxes are good for little things, big paper bags or cake boxes work for most projects too. These are their party packs – at this stage get them to decorate them slightly, even if it is just with their names, while they wait for everyone to get their hearts painted on and a couple of late arrivals.

Step 3: Party Games: For a Valentines party, especially when you want to get the kids to have made something complete to take home with them, I would leave the mad running about to the treasure hunt step at the end and in the games section of the party I would let them prepare something “hearty” too eat! Keep this really simple. First prepare it, then do your craft and eat your rewarding cooking creation when you are finished crafting. Nothing like something yummy to tear folk away from a craft that may well have been terminal otherwise.

• Puff Pastry Hearts
• Decorate Cookies: heart-shaped of course! or Heart Shaped Window Cookies.
• Pink and White Coconut – Ice
• Eton Mess – this is surprisingly easy to make. You can prepare the the meringue before and and let them experiment with smooshing them with berries and cream.
• Profiteroles – these are brilliant for kids to get involved in – beating cream or sprinkling icing if they are small and doing the whole choux pastry thing if they are older.
• Ice-Cream in a Ziplock Bag Before you pore your ice-cream out of the ziplock bag add some frozen berries and smoosh your ice cream around a bit more.
• Pink Lemonade pink of course, just add a dash of cranberry juice or a spot of pink coloring to your basic lemonade and you are done.

Step 4: Party Craft: Party Crafts are easy enough, have a look at our previous post: Se7en do Se7en Valentines.

• Idea #1 : Valentine Masks
• Idea #2 : Valentine Bookmarks
• Idea #3 : Valentine Thumbtacks
• Idea #4 : Valentine Fans
• Idea #5 : Valentine Post-it-Note Bunting
• Idea #6 : Valentine (Peg) Love Bugs
• Idea #7 : Valentine Hand Print Hug

Step 5: Party Pinata: You need to make pink mini-pinatas, the directions are here. Just be sure to use pink tissue paper instead of green. I would be very tempted to stuff them with rose petals (Oh what a joyous mess!) and some teeny tiny valentine goodies, which are easy enough to find this time of year: erasers, hair clips whatever. Get them to pop their stash into their party packs.

Step 6: Party Food: Remember for a good party: One food and One Beverage – trust me on this it really is all you need and it works! You won’t be panicking about catering and will be able to help little people craft instead. And even better if you managed to get them to do their own catering in Step 3!

Also in a party like this that is craft rich… trust me the only way to get some kids away from glittering, gluing, painting and printing is literally to have some sort of snack as the draw card. As they are snacking gather up their craft projects ready to take home (to avoid any lingerer returning to their task) and their party packs are good to go.

Step 7: Treasure Hunt: Finally, I can think of two obvious ones:

• Follow the Rose Petal Trail: You can make this as hard or as easy as your crowd demands.

  

• Follow the Streamer Trail: As it twists and turns through your house and garden.

  

And your reward at the end of the trail: some heart candy of course… and their party packs.

That’s it, you are done! Have Fun!

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