Woodland 6th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to Eliza my lovely little girl

Finally getting around to recording my party activity for the last year after having a beautiful baby boy.  I need somewhere to record all my parties because I stopped printing photos years ago and have no record of my babies' birthdays anywhere but here.  Even if no-one else ever reads this I will know where to look if I want to reminisce about their party themes.

Not a forced photo at all...

Here are my three lovely children all happy and friendly with each other as usual...  Finlay the moody (was then) 12 year old.  Still moody but a year older.  Sturrock the newbie and Eliza the girl squashed in the middle of her two brothers.  Sturrock is wearing a handmade dinosaur romper.  My favourite shops for these types of clothes are JMW Kids and Love Bee Baby 

The theme for Eliza's 6th birthday was woodland.  I am so glad I have moved house now and have a much more neutral background for any future parties.  That wallpaper is horrendous I can't believe I ever liked it haha.

I love to "shop" my house for things that will fit a theme and because I had a new baby I kept this all really simple.

The cake I made myself.  I was very last minute with it and hadn't really decided what I was doing until the day before and luckily Sturrock helped me by sleeping well.   I usually have a covered cake for birthdays but I really liked this one and could easily eat this right now...

The return of the "snail" wraps from Eliza's 2nd birthday.

A fish bowl didn't really fit the theme but possibly there is a pond in the woods?  Teddy bear crisps tick the box though

Cake and meringues standard party food at mine!

Chocolate raisins and nuts in cute little boxes from dotcomgiftshop

Rubbish photo of mars bar krispies and rabbit shaped shorties

Empire biscuits - Finlay's favourite so Granny delivered! 

The picnic basket I inherited from a lady at work makes its appearance again!  Great prop for loads of themes 

Tiny toadstools - I loved these so easy and cute - raspberries with a mini marshmallow how simple! 

Again the star dishes might not fit the theme but they were white and useful :)

Awww she looks so little without her teeth 

Easy cupcakes to take home

I don't like to cut the cake for people to take home I find it way easier to have cupcakes pre-boxed in the party bags so I can sit back and enjoy all of the cake party.  I also always have the fear that all the cake will be eaten and I won't get enough haha I am greedy like that. 

Party bags

My go to party bag is a brown paper bag but I ran out of time and didn't deorate or do anything exciting here but with a little bird gift tag (again dotcomgiftshop) they were good to go.  Inside this year's bag were little woodland themed note paper, hedgehog nail files, animal temporary tattoos, a pen, rubber, badger plasters (random!), hedgehog and badger hair clips, woodland magnetic bookmark (all dotcomgiftshop) and as usual I made some felt animals

Owl, fawn, fox, squirrel, bird, hedgehog and toadstool 

I left these to the last minute (don't I always?) and they are really quite ugly haha.  Made them into brooches this year so they could be pinned to somewhere.  Always wish I kept a full set for myself of my felt creations but I am always so glad to be finished the ones I need for the party I couldn't think of anything worse than making extras!

Here they all are waiting for their new homes in the party bags

I wish I could choose a theme early and start making the felt rather than the stress of a cake, felt animals, party bag shopping and prop "shopping" the house.  But even her 7th birthday party  I knew the theme way in advance and I still ended up finishing sewing little animals at 6am the morning of the party.  My only excuse is we just moved house and the only finished room was the room the party would be in (and it was only finished a few days before)

I am looking forward to having lots more parties in my neutral new home for Eliza and Sturrock - Finlay I am pretty sure would die of embarrassment if I even suggested a themed party for his 14th??  But maybe by the time he is 18?

Eliza with her baby brother such a good big sister to him

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Princess and the Wizard 7th birthday party

I have been so busy since my last post!  The baby was a boy and he is called Sturrock. He is now 15 months old.  Eliza is a great big sister to him  (and Finlay a great big brother)  For Eliza's birthday this year's theme was The Princess and the Wizard - a fantastic book by Julia Donaldson,  I have been planning this party for almost 7 years since I named my baby girl Eliza.  The book is about a Princess called Eliza celebrating her 7th birthday and I cannot believe my own little Princess is 7 now! 

The little wizard

Reading The Princess and the Wizard

Eliza's party table

The party table in the book

I tried to match everything to the party table in the book but as usual I left everything to the last minute and we have just moved into an old house that is undergoing lots of change right now so I was stressed out looking for missing bunting, cake stands and ribbon. 

Cupcakes

Cutting the cake

The birthday cake

Roly poly biscuits

Cake!

In the midst of a new kitchen being put in - the plugs aren't even attached to the wall! 

Strawberry meringues

Cupcakes

Jam roly poly biscuits

Party games


We had a lot of fun on the party games this year.  For every animal Princess Eliza turns into in the book I had a party game to play.  The first animal she turns into is a fish so we played a game called Floundering  It was my favourite game as a child (mine was called Flounders) and you need to roll the dice to build up a puzzle of a fish.  The winner was given an inflatable fish.  

The next animal she turns into is a chick


I bought plastic chicks from Baker Ross but they had small holes in the bottom so my handy husband filled them with silicone we had lying around the house for the renovations.  We filled the bottoms with a little bit of water, added an Alka-Seltzer and put the lids on before giving them a little shake.  They worked really well!  Nice little explosions with not too much mess.


She also has to darn socks in the book so we made sock bubbles with bottles following the instructions here.  We were really lucky and it was a roasting hot day.  The bubbles were great we were able to make some really long snakes.

Sock bubbles

Next we had a game of tiddly winks as she turns herself into a grasshopper so we pretended the tiddly winks were grasshoppers jumping around

Next animal is a fox so we moved inside again and played pin the tail on the fox

Butterfly is next so we decorated butterfly crowns with colouring pens and stickers.  

Eliza's beautiful dress with the butterflies to match the party was from Monsoon 

Next in the book Princess Eliza turns into a black cat so the girls were given cat shaped scratch art

Finally on her 7th try after turning herself into a bird she turns herself into a piece of paper so we went outside again and had a game flying paper birds around the garden 

We had a fantastic day and Eliza was given lots of lovely gifts.  

For the party bags I made 7 felt animals for everyone: a bird, a chick, a grasshopper, a fox, a butterfly, a cat and a bird.

The Princess may try 7 times to hide by changing her colour and changing her shape 

 I was up at 6am on the day of the party finishing these! 

Inside the party bags were a fish book, a packet of bird wipes, a bunny pencil, insect tattoos, butterfly sweets I made like Eliza's 2nd birthday party bags and a cupcake in a box 

 

The next day was Grant's birthday! 

Not enough Ds :) 

He had a hard week so we didn't **forget** his birthday cake this year! 

There is something about water icing that makes me want to eat this so badly right now

Couple of candles and good to go

An iced cherry bakewell slice.  First time making it but won't be the last it tasted great.  Not sure what it is meant to taste like but it went with my taste buds :D 

There were plenty of cakes and biscuits to keep us going all week.  I love a birthday week!  Hard work and stressful at the time but then you get to sit and have cuppies and cakes all week.  What's not to love?! 

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Recipe for roly poly biscuits here


See the Princess Eliza's other birthday themes here: Woodland , Mr Men and Little Miss, Ladybird, Under the Sea
Her big brother's themes here: Nerf party, Superhero, Mario
Baby brother's themes: Aeroplanes