Another year, another birthday party, another time I’ve spent ages prepping for a party only to forget that in the hurricane that is 20 kids, there will be zero time to even take a breath, and all those good intentions of taking beautiful photographs of all the great makes and activities will get totally forgotten. Two years ago: circus theme party. Last year: camping theme party (this was the best party ever). But I have next to no pictures of either one. When you organise a kids’ birthday party yourself, and you’re being the ‘entertainer’, it’s full on. You have to throw yourself into the party completely, and that leaves absolutely no time to snap away with your camera. Every year I vow that I’ll take pictures of what I’ve made and prepared before the event, but then every year I’m still frantically making stuff an hour before the party’s due to start and taking photographs is frankly the last thing on my mind.
For the first time this year, the twins wanted different things for their birthday party. So we decided to book a hall for a couple of hours and throw two parties at the same time. I know. We’re completely bonkers. Why on earth we thought this would be a good plan I have no idea! We did, however, get a company with their mobile wood fired pizza oven (Little Reds for anyone in the Wokingham area) along so we didn’t have to worry about the food side of things. Fonz was so into this that he wanted his whole party to be pizza-themed (more on that tomorrow), and it did work brilliantly. The kids made their own pizzas, from rolling out the dough to watching it go into the woodfired oven. The pizzas cooked in minutes, and then got put into takeaway boxes – the kids all sat on picnic blankets on the grass to tuck in.
Ez has developed an obsession for all things unicorn – this is the first time she has ever been so fixated on one thing so it was pretty inevitable that she would be adamant a unicorn birthday party was the only option for her 7th birthday. She also loves to get involved in all the planning and prep, so a lot of these unicorn party ideas came from her (can’t think who she takes after..).
Unicorn party craft activity
Ez loves arts and crafts so a unicorn craft activity was top of her party wishlist. I cut out unicorn templates from card, and just put these out on the table with a selection of stickers, and adhesive gems. I used a hole-punch to punch a hole for the kids to thread yarn through to make the unicorn’s tale, and punched another hole so I could thread through a string to turn it into a necklace. There were also craft lollypop sticks out so they could make unicorn puppets if they wanted to.
Unicorn party games
Ez insisted on ‘Pin the Horn on the Unicorn’. I don’t have a photograph of this but there are much nicer examples than mine (drawing a unicorn is really hard!) on Pinterest anyway, so you can find something beautiful there instead. The kids thought it was absolutely hilarious – they were practially crying with laughter. Who knew this game was so funny?! Ez also dreamt up ‘Unicorn, Unicorn come alive’, which was her adaptation of the playground game ‘Dead Man, Dead Man, Come Alive’. Basically one child is ‘it’ and lies on the floor, while the others chant, “Unicorn, unicorn come alive. Come alive by the count of five. One, two, three, four, five”, and then ‘it’ has to jump up and catch somebody. I didn’t have to prepare anything for this, and it filled ten minutes or so. We also had a unicorn piñata – I saw this great tutorial to turn a donkey piñata into a unicorn, but ended up buying a readymade unicorn instead (I couldn’t quite bear the idea of making something which would then get smashed to pieces).
Unicorn cake
Type ‘unicorn cake’ into the search on Pinterest and you’ll see some absolutely stunning creations. I really fancied a more abstract, rainbow style cake, but Ez was quite clear that her cake needed to be a unicorn’s head. I used two simple 20cm Victoria sponges, which I cut and reassembled to form the head shape (using buttercream as my glue). Then I covered the whole head with pre-rolled white icing. I sprayed an ice cream cone with edible silver spray, and buttercream-glued it in place. The mane was made from rainbow laces, bought from my local supermarket. All it needed then was an eye and mouth piped on with black icing, and a little blush in its cheeks added using some diluted pink food colouring. Edible glitter finished it off.
Unicorn headband
As a treat for all the guests, I made each of them a unicorn headband to wear for the party and then take home with them. They look great, and weren’t that difficult to make (honest). I mainly followed this tutorial on Tikkido, but instead of flowers I used tulle to create a rainbow mane that I’d seen here. I also used some of my own powder blusher to add some colour to the inside of the unicorn ears.
Unicorn outfit
I admit that I ended up getting pretty caught up in the unicorn theme, and I bought some fabric on eBay to make Ez a skirt to wear for her party (as a surprise). I am really lacking in the sewing skills department, but I followed this simple skirt tutorial on Made Everyday and had the skirt done in less than an hour. It was so straightforward, looks brilliant and Ez loves it – I will definitely be making more of these in the future.
Pop back tomorrow to see what we did for Fonz’s pizza party. And for more party ideas, why not follow my ‘for parties’ Pinterest board?
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