Styling: Alexis Teasdale
Photography: Lauren Trompp
My little boy loves blue at the moment. And I mean looooves blue. Which made this years party pretty dang easy. For the record, I’m all for boys loving pink, girls loving blue and all kids loving whatever they like! So this year I just went with what he loves best, which happens to be everything and anything blue.
Blue balloons, food, bubbles, games, drinks, favours, decorations and more.
It all began when I did a big clear out of Teddy’s old toys. A lot were donated to charity, but there were loads of bits and bobs left, that no longer worked or had pieces missing. So instead of throwing them out I started spraying them blue. and eventually had enough for a big ‘ol wall full*, which was completed with a big perspex sign from Letters From Belle.
*I’ve since relocated it all to a wall on his room, a fun bonus.
With a lot of babies coming, a ball pit was fun. Kmart’s version is budget friendly, and easy to blow up and pack down. I bought a couple of bags of the spare balls, and just used the blue ones for the party (at $8 it doesn’t break the bank and we use all the colours when we play at home) and you could do this with pink, green, or yellow too. Even Teddy still loves the ball pit at three.
Now it’s hard to tell, but this is GLITTER JELLY. Yep. It’s a shimmering, wobbly delight. In my search for blue jelly, I stumbled across Aeroplane Glitter Jelly in Berry Blue and totally rocked my world.
I actually couldn’t for the life of me, find circle lollies that would work as the lifesaving rings, so I cut a marshmallow in half, then pushed a hole in it, and squeezed the teddies in.
I’m a big-time fan of hundreds and thousands. But no matter how much I love a party, I draw the line at separating them into colours. Ha.
I found plain blue sprinkles at melt, bake, party and combined them with a bit ‘o green too.
Try and find a blue piñata with pull strings RN. Sigh. So I transformed a Star Wars version into this. If you’re throwing your first kids party and they’re under 5 or 6, the pull string piñatas are far less stressful. Just line’ em up and they all pull a string, and one will release the goodies!
Blu-linis were a take on Bellini’s, with blueberry emulsion in the bottom of the glass, and Prosecco poured over the top!
I was super time-poor before this party, and I was trying to figure out how to make, ice, decorate and freeze the cake before the party. Then inspiration struck: ICE CREAM CAKE.
It was perfect, Teddy loves ice cream, and it could be completely ready before the day, so Icould just pull it out the freezer and serve.
I bought a few different punnets of vanilla, and added a little colouring and different kind of treats like blueberries and biscuits. I also used the IGA rainbow and just scooped the blue (with some stray hints of pinks and yellow.) These were layered over a couple of days in a round tin with gladwrap completely covering the base and sides to make it easy to remove.
When it came to ‘icing’ it, I used regular whipped cream and smoothed it around the sides and top. Because of the temp, it would strart to freeze almost straight away which was quite handy!
Then once the cream icing was frozen, I pressed in Sweetapolita blue sprinkles. My new favourite thing in life, just quietly.
To top it, I pre-made mini scoops. This has a couple of benefits. 1) Looks cute. 2) After singing happy birthday, you can scoop them straight off the cake and into cones for the kids. No fuss and no waiting for the cake to be cut. 3) They were actually quite small, so less sugar for the kiddies without them even knowing. #mumstealth. 4) Then there’s plenty of time (and ice cream!) for the grown ups.
Ive used Amazing Kids Parties for Teddy’s last three birthdays, and each time I’ve had one entertainer who did both face painting and balloon twisting. This covers all bases for kids who like both or either, and I requested blue balloons especially!
Giant noughts and crosses was made from an old yoga mat I had. Then a bit of blue rope made up the lines, and hey presto! Easy to pack away and use again.
I found plain blue doh and magic sand at KMART, so that along with some blue chalk and colouring in stuff made a fun little craft station for those legendary kids who actually sit still long enough to use it.
ASOS blue glitter gumboots, the perfect accessory for me!
Teddy already had this blue kmart shell fuilled with sand. And IKEA’s plain blue spades came in handy too.
A bagel bar was perfect brunch food for big people and little people.
Mini blueberry jams proved almost to difficult for me to find. But thanks to my extreme Google skillz, I tracked them down at Hotel Products Direct. The grown ups got a bag of mini jams on the way out, and the kidlets took home a jumbo blue bubble stick.
