Tuesday, April 9

How to throw a fun, easy and stress free birthday party. At the last minute no less.

As I mentioned yesterday, birthday parties can be exhausting.

In my mind a birthday party should be fun, easy and stress free. This weekend just gone saw the first of our birthday party holding for the year. Thankfully it went off like a frog in a sock. 

Not only was it a huge success but it was incredibly simple and did not break the bank. Talk about winning hey?

Being the awesome caring sharing blogger that I am, I am going to share with you how I managed to throw a stress free, yet totally fun birthday party for a three year old.

My Top Tips For Stress Free Birthday Parties

simple yummy food for a birthday party
  1. Keep It Simple. Never let go of the K.I.S principle.
    Know your limitations and don't feel the need to push past them. Not every party has to look like it would send Pinterest users into overdrive. In fact it is probably best to forget that the evils of Pinterest even exist. (Unless of course you are going there to pin my photos/posts to let others know of how easy a party can be)
    The food was incredibly simple.

    Sausages cooked on the barbie, complete with sauce and rolls or bread
    Fairy bread cut into fun shapes
    Chocolate crackles and honey joys
    Dip with celery, carrot and capsicum strips
    Celery with peanut butter
    Kabana & cheese
    Chips

    Most of which can be prepared ahead of time and popped in the fridge till party time. I think it took me all of an hour to cut up what was needed.

  2. Don't go overboard with the invites.
    Especially if it is a party for little ones. My mum has a great rule that you only invite as many children as the age of the birthday.

    With that in mind Miss Three choose three friends (one of whom couldn't make it). By the time we invited our besties, who have three children, and two children from the complex we live in (it seemed wrong to have a pool party at the complex pool and not invite them), we suddenly had a total of twelve children. Since they were all manner of ages though it was quite manageable. Particularly since there were some older children that were able to entertain younger ones. Winning right there I tell you.

  3. Accept help when it is offered.
    There was a time when I mistakenly thought I had to do it all myself. Not this year though. Mum offered to make chocolate crackles and honey joys. My instinct was to say no it's fine I'll do it but thankfully common sense won through and before she even finished the sentence I was gratefully accepting.

  4. Remember that children don't need a lot to have fun.
    Being blessed with a large pool makes last minute parties easy because who doesn't want to spend a lazy afternoon by the pool. Throw in a few water balloons or even some water guns and you have just found hours of entertainment for rowdy kids.

    I also did a very simple rigged game of pass the parcel. When I say rigged I mean it was one of those ones where everyone got something, be it a lolly, sticker or balloon. The end prize was a pack of textas picked up from the local $2 shop. Everyone walked away with a smile on their face.

  5. Any cake is good cake.
    Seriously it is. Especially if you are a child. Store bought or homemade, at the end of the day it makes no difference. A cake is a cake.

    I did give the birthday girl a cake book to flick through and choose from but she couldn't decide on one and quite frankly neither could I. As much as I like the whole homemade cake thing, it is also a rather stressful and time consuming affair.

    Thanks to the cute little creatures you can pick up from the local supermarket I was able to create a simple masterpiece. I don't mind baking the odd cake every now and then so I just whipped up a simple chocolate orange mud cake type thing, slapped on a bit of butter cream icing, stuck some cute little creatures and hundreds and thousands on it and Bob's your uncle birthday cake complete.
Simple three year old birthday cake
One last minute cake, complete with dodgy icing.


Joining in with Jess and the IBOT gang
 photo fwbksignature_zps702ebc7d.jpg
Follow on Bloglovin

16 comments:

  1. That sounds like just my kind of party. We never went over board with themes etc. Great idea about inviting the number of guests as age turning !!
    It is so hard to accept help and yet we always feel so good when we do because we are less stressed and better about to deal with anything that does happen.
    So glad everyone had such a great time - have the best week !
    Me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep the whole theme thing is a bit beyond me as well. I am just no good with all those ideas, and since Pinterest goes over my head what's a girl to do?

      Delete
  2. I went really simple this year for No.1's 5th birthday, had a 1.5 hr time limit, 5 party games and before I knew it it was 15 minutes to end time and so we did the cake and then everyone left! And I had no left over food because kept it simple - NEVER again will I stress out about parties! And yep cake is cake!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Five party games! Oh me oh my that sounds like hard work! There really is no need to stress is there. If only we knew that at the start hey?

      Delete
  3. any cake is good cake. no truer words have ever been spoken Rhi! And you're right - kids don't need much to have a good time! less than 3 months til Nick's birthday that falls right in the middle of school hols. No idea what to do yet but will definitely be keeping it simple!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes simple is the key. Sounds like you will need to be super organised to get the invites out before the holidays hey? Good luck with it all

      Delete
  4. How simple and wonderful was that! I love kids parties for the honey joys and chocolate crackles - still eating left over crackles at our place! I like the idea of inviting as many children as the child's birthday age - wish I could employ that rule in our house!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had none left over! Ripped off or what?

      It is a bit harder to employ the age to guest ratio when you have a large extended family.

      Delete
  5. Such great tips! I haven't started birthday party madness yet, but I am SO bearing everything you've written in mind when I do! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have always done parties, even when they were too small to know what was going on. I like a bit of a party, well I did, nearly twelve years into children's parties the novelty has started to wear off somewhat

      Delete
  6. Hi Rhianna - great tips, especially the one about inviting as many children as the age of the birthday (I once had 25 and it was hell...). By the way, I didn't get this post in my email?? Can you check I'm properly subscribed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Gemma, I am not sure you completely verified your request for subscription. Also this particular post was back dated for publication which may have caused an issue with feed burner. Finally I think I have it set up to send out the feed at like 9 am or something so if I post after that it won't be sent till the next day. Thanks for the interest and support, so greatly appreciated.

      Delete
  7. I love the KIS reminder, I -must- try and remember this in May.. I don't like my chances (the almost 7 year old has grand plans!) Choc orange mud cake?! YUM! I love orange and chocolate. #teamIBOT ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OMG, the cake was beyond delicious even if I do say so myself. Best part is I kinda made the recipe up so I can blog about it. Stay tuned

      Delete
  8. I'm such a huge fan of simple parties. The kids have just as much fun from them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep the kids were totally stoked by it.

      Delete

Fairy wishes and butterfly kisses to you, thanks for stopping by, it really means a lot, you taking the time so say hi. I try as much as I can to write a reply but if for some chance I don't get to it please know that I always read them.