Saturday, July 29, 2017

D is 5 Space bday

Up up and away we all went into space for Dhruva's 5th birthday!
Another great event with loads of DIY and decorations with D involved in it all more than ever!

Ready for a chronicle of all things spacey and galactic that this party had?

Venue: Living room of 207.

Decorations:

Paper lantern planets and striped bunting plus small xmas lights to mimic the night sky with stars.


The wall behind the cake table was made to look like the night sky filled with stars, planets, a satellite and one astronaut floating.

All these were hand drawn and hand cut out shapes, but for some of the stars (which I got ready made at Itsy Bitsy)


I think the biggest attraction was probably the rocket photo booth. Thanks to an awesome thoughtful friend who figured I could use her new ladder's packaging box for something useful at the party! Thanks to pinterest, she knew about the party even before I was ready to tell anyone about it! :)
Although, I am not completely happy about the way the rocket was finished, the kids just had a blast posing behind it.

Also the door behind the rocket booth was closed with a black curtain. Add a Sun and a few stars and you have some more sky for a back drop.


One more Rocket made out of cardstock to fill out the bare walls. I love how colorful it turned out.


I never knew I liked door signs so much! This sign we hung on the main door. A door sign is a good way to set the tone for a party. This one was printed out of 220 gsm paper and was completely deigned by your truly! Designed on this awesome app/ website called Canva!


Speaking of design and canva.. This time there was an official invite designed on canva, just to make sure everyone knows the when and where is the party clearly.
Here is how the invite looked.



The dessert table was almost true to the theme this time around. It had alien faces marshmallows and fruit rockets.



Covering up juice boxes in the colors of the party is an easy peasy deco that I am a fan of lately. This time juice boxes were further dressed up with Astronomical elements like planet, UFO, alien and other such.








More decorations: The wall next to the entryway has a window which was again covered with a black curtain and housed a sleepy moon and 2 clouds along with a colorful felt stars.


Another view of the decorations.




Entry way and more paper lanterns. Paper lanterns are my most favorite decorating element! They are under used. They are as colorful as balloons. They do not need inflating. They do not pop or go lifeless after a couple days, unlike balloons. If protected form the dust well enough, they can be reused over and over again.

Oh and btw, the alien from toy story was invited to the party. The children had to pin the antenna on him in a fun game!


Cake cake cake! What's a birthday without a cake! D's 5th bday cake had a typo! The A at the end of his name was left out. But D tried to reason it out saying, the astronaut at the end of his name is the A. :) Whatever makes him happy :)


Favors: Brown paper envelopes/bags are a new found treasure!! I have always been torn when it comes to favors. How much should I spend on them? Should it be a long lasting toy or should it just be a fleeting fun thing. Annnnd, I have the need to make it useful. Also, I need it to be within our budget. You get the conflict in my head - right?

I think the brown paper bags sort of take care of the budget angle - They can be decorated in many different ways - hence providing the carfting outlet while, they are one of the cheapest packaging available in many sizes. 
So this is probably the beginning of a long journey with the brown paper envelopes!

Favors this time:
- A small encyclopedia (one of Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, Space, Universe) - package in a large brown envelope decorated with colorful dot markers.
- A star shaped hand made soap - packed in a smaller hand decorated brown envelope.
- A cardboard tube dressed like an alien with a candy.













All of the above was on the day we had the party - July 22.

One the morning of the real bday - July 25. D got a surprise from his appa and amma.
The room where he went to bed on the prev night had a yellow(his fav color) curtain when he walked out on his bday morning.





And he got a special gift form his parents again wrapped in a brown decorated envelope (Oh! I was serious about the long journey with brown paper...)
His gift was a sticker activity book / encyclopedia on horses and ponies which happen to be his latest obsession apart from yellow color.



Happy birthday dear little one! :)


Sunday, July 23, 2017

Dhruva's Fifth Bday food..

Dhruva is turning 5 tomorrow.. This time we had his bday on the previous saturday and we had a space themed bday party!

I am so satisfied this time... I got to do a large chunk of everything that I had planned. I think it was very nicely planned - S pitched in... dear sis M was around too to help out,.. Best of all Dhruva is at this nice age where he understands and enjoys everything that is going on and is young enough to co-operate to a large extent without many arguments/ questions.

The one thing that I really like this time was the way we handled food. The party started at 5pm (even though the first guest arrived at 545 probably) and by 9pm everyone was out.

Agenda:

Welcome all
Snacks
Games pin antenna and planets hunt
Videos
Cake cut
Dinner
Party favors

As soon as they arrived, adults got tea and samosa while kids got juice and some junk. junk being chips, marshmallows (alien face painted), fruit rockets.
And dinner for all was served soon after the cake was cut. Everyone got their own disposable box for dinner.

Menu:
Adults: Chapathi - 2, aloo matar, Biryani, raita, curd rice and dry jamun. All in one plastic container
Kids: Half a cheese sandwich , half box of noodles and fries nicely packed in one cardboard box.
People ate and disposed their boxes in large carton boxes - ones we got from basement shop.

At the end of the day there was barely any extra vessels lying in the kitchen sink for cleaning. All we had to do at night after the guests left was to clear up the carton boxes and to clean up the floor where the kids ate.
So easy and breezy.

But we did waste some food. There were some 7 adult food boxes and 7 kids boxes of food left over.
we did use 2 of the kids boxes next morning for breakfast - but still there was wastage.
This time we tackled post party clean up well. Next party we have to tackle food wastage.
We could look at this food surplus in an altruistic angle and say well some uninvited security guards got to eat different food for one night. Still it seems like a bad thing to have excess food.

Anyhow will be posting one more on the decorations and activities... be right back!