Party Tips: Se7en Themes and Invitations.

I said I would write more party tips for each of the steps in Se7en Steps to a Good Party…… and Step 1: was all about invitations… that being said … before you send out invitations you need a theme so I thought I would jot down se7en party theme ideas: those that work and those that don’t!!!

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Let’s start with the worst party scenario so that we can only improve:

Parties that generally don’t work for kids or their mother (believe me – yes – believe me!!!) are the ones where they arrive and are faced with a table laden with food and the only indication that there may be a theme is on the cardboard plates and plastic cups… otherwise they are expected to keep themselves busy, eating all this and then keep themselves quietly entertained while their little stomachs cope with the ensuing revolt and all the while the adults gather together to natter… then they are given as a parting gift a bag of more edible stuff to say thank-you for coming… save yourselves the trouble folks … these kids are not hungry… they could easily be bored and bored children get into mischief and mischief is what you want to avoid at ALL COSTS, since mischief can literally get very costly.

Right, I just needed to get that out!

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Moving on, it really helps to have a theme because then you can apply your games, crafts, cakes, pinata and whatever else to the theme and go for it… Go with your kids latest passions, not only because you will already own a lot of the props but because your kid and associated short people should have a vague idea about what the party is about…

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With the themes I have tried to include invitation ideas… invitations are important! They make great memento’s especially if you include a photo of your child at the time of the party… you can either paste your photo onto an image you have found or even better (and this works really well adding to your memento), let your child draw a picture of the vehicle, beast or whatever and then somehow include your child in the picture. If you make your invitation in the shape of a card then on the back cover there can be things to do – to drum up the excitement for the impending event… I have made invitations with cars to cut out and place on an auto-transporter, cut-outable creatures to stick on the cover, bits and pieces of a space rocket to cut and stick; simple paper dolls- for every theme! – whatever- kids love being busy…

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Theme 1: Vehicles: This works really well with all little people and I usually attach a color (it makes it easier for treasure hunts and activities). The list is endless: the yellow mixer; the green car; the purple tractor; the blue bike; the red helicopter; an auto-transporter; we’ve even had a a submersible – seriously, the list is endless… Once you have a chosen vehicle pop a photo of the birthday kids into a picture of your vehicle and off you go… here is Hood #1 before his picture is placed into a submersible…
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Theme 2: Beasts: This is also brilliant for short people: butterfly; snake; elephant; penguins; dogs; spider; frog; chameleon; bug; the list goes on and on… and crafts for these parties are really easy… Invitations can either be place the kids face over the beasts face or photograph the kidlet as a zookeeper; park ranger; vet or whatever. Not forgetting unreal beasts… dragons and monsters. Here is an example of a very short hood (#2) preparing for his monster party…

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and here is the final invitation…

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Theme 3: People: Well I stretch the word people to include: fairies; goblins; wizards; spies; pirates; clowns; rag dolls; romans; monsters and dragon riders and so on and so on… When it comes to invitations just place a photo of your child onto the body of the hero/heroine. The rag doll invite was really easy we just made a string of paper dolls holding hands. Not to mention a pirate from Peter Pan…

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Theme 4: Activity: We have had garden, hat, bag, scrap booking and craft parties; What about shape parties: like ball or star parties; I have to include food parties here as well, like pizza and pasta making parties, not to mention cookie and sundae parties. For cooking parties an easy invitation would be a menu, or a chef’s hat placed on the head of the potential chef… Here is an easy flower invitation from the gardening party:

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Theme 5: Adventure: Treasure; explorer; underwater; outer space; gadget; safari… and many more. These parties lend themselves to intricate map invitations; letters in a bottle; secret codes (and their keys!); invisible ink; backward writing and so on. In this section I would include sport parties too, like swimming; hiking; cricket; soccer; surfing; winter or summer olympics; even mini-olymics. Easy and obvious invitations are ones that look like championship certificates.

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Theme 6: Book/Author/Hero: This is the best/easiest party you can plan: take your kids favorite book at the moment, google it and you will have a bazillion crafts and activities… we have had great Gruffalo; Roald Dahl and Dr Suess parties. Here just placing a copy of a “cat in the hat” hat on a photo of the birthday beast and off you go.

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Theme 7: Miscellaneous: (I love that word, just wish I could spell it without spellcheck!)… There are a whole lot of parties that are not birthday parties but deserve a mention… movie nights; game nights; craft nights; Christmas cookie parties; welcoming sibling parties… seasonal parties; new year parties … it really is endless!!! In fact almost anywhere you look short people seem to be able to find a cause to celebrate… and I will have to write more about these parties much later on down the blog…

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That’s surely enough to go on! In the next installment of Se7en Steps to a Good Party I look forward to inspiring you with Step 2: Se7en Easy Party Starters… and Gift Ideas..

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