Birthday party

Last week my brother asked me to help him out for his daughter's tenth birthday party. At first I wasn't so sure that I had the time or energy to do it but then my brain just wouldn't stop organizing and designing the party. So I just went all inn.

The birthday girl wanted the party to be a costume party as usual but with a Monsters High theme. I have made enough figurative birthday cakes through the years and I didn't want to go into that for this party. I decided to try and follow the Monsters High color-scheme as well as I could with what ever colors I had in my drawer and just have a go with a triangular pyramid (which I had for some reason visioned in my head along with some wage idea of patterns from Peruvian carpets). And this is the result.

I wasn't sure if ten-year old girls were still keen on birthday cakes so I added some more fun to it. I folded a glittery crane to put on the top and  lighted sparklers on each side.

During the week prior to the party I made a lot of cranes to put on cocktail sticks. They were of many sizes and different types of paper. The paper size I used varied from 7.5x7.5 cm squares up to 13x13 cm. The folding is both quick and easy and when its ready the folds create a center point at the bottom of the crane that can be opened slightly up to insert the cocktail pin. Follow this LINK for a tutorial on folding the crane.

I used both regular origami paper and patterned crafting paper. The patterned paper I bought in Tiger as well as the cocktail sticks. The sticks I bought actually came with a plastic glitter fringe decoration on the end which I took off in order to put the birds on. Plain sticks (with no decoration) can surely be bought somewhere but since I didn't know where their sold I jumped on the once in Tiger. 

Making the sticks takes some time  (if you are doing many) but they are inexpensive and their decorative effect makes up for the hours spent making them.

As a last decorative thing I made a string of patterned flags and as this was to be a Monsters High party I glued the Monsters High skull on each flag.

For each flag I folded a A4 sheet of paper in half and cut out a triangle that was 12 cm wide at the top and 21 cm long (the width of a A4 sheet). This gave me two triangles. I folded the top of one of the triangles down one centimeter but on the other one I cut one centimeter of the top. Now both triangles measured 20 cm long and about 11 cm wide. Next I glued a one centimeter wide ribbon under the fold on the triangle with the folded top and then glued the other triangle on the first one. Then I had a flag with print on both sides. This process I repeated for the rest of the flags placing them 10 cm apart on the ribbon. Lastly I found the Monsters High scull logo with a white background and printed out as many as I needed, cut them out and glued on both sides of each flag. And volá! Yes it did take a lot of time but I am happy with the final result so it was worth it.

The paper I used I got very cheap in Tiger. It's about the same weight as a regular photocopy paper but when glued together it becomes quite heavy which then results in nice stiff flags.

Lastly just a few words on the catering. The table was set with the birthday cake (a chocolate cake with butter cream), pizzas and a fruit punch (see picture above). Then towards the end of the party we prepared a chocolate fondue with marshmallows, strawberries, wafer biscuits and mango bits to dip in.  So the cocktail sticks, in stead of just being for decoration, came to good use both for the fruit punch as well as the fondue.

In case you were wondering the decorations and the catering were a hit with both the birthday girl and her guest. That is so rewarding!

Over and out for now.