Isabel has always loved parties. She loves attending parties and she loves having her own party.
For the past few years, she has been asking me to organise a birthday party for her and I had so far managed to change her mind to use the budget to go for holidays instead. Or have small parties at one of those indoor playgrounds, which we had had twice.
This year, for her 9th birthday, she insisted on a party at home and there was no changing her mind. Like millions of girls around the world, she is also very into all things unicorns, so the theme had to be unicorn.
This time, I gave in and agreed to have a party. I mean, how hard is it to organise a kid’s party at home? I also made her agree that the party will only be for her classmates as I tried to keep it to a small scale.
Well, I now know why parents hire event planners to organise kids birthday parties… It is just too much work!
The month of June saw me busy scouring Pinterest and saving hundreds of photos related to unicorn-themed parties.
First thing to prepare was the birthday invitation, which I designed using www.canva.com. This software has really become a life-saver for everything that I needed to design, from the invitation cards to candy jar labels and other decoration stuff.
I also found lots of downloadable posters in Pinterest, including this poster for ‘What’s Your Unicorn Name’. Mine is Buttercup McGiddyUp. What’s yours?
There was also a special request from my Unicorn Princess for a tutu skirt. I had made 2 tutu skirts for her a few years ago and I thought she would think she was too old for tutu skirts now. So I was surprised with the request but was more than happy to make her one.
I went to Evergreen Trading, a sewing material shop in SS14 Subang Jaya, for the tulle cloths and elastic waistband.
Next on the list of things to do was a big unicorn face on canvas frame. We got the fake flowers from Kaison, and coloured papers and canvas from Zuiver Craft in Sunway.
Isabel also helped out by filling up the pinata. We got our pinata from Balloon Buzz in USJ Taipan. It was quite a small one but the bigger ones that we found in Lazada was too expensive. I initially wanted to make one myself. I printed out the template and bought the materials but it was just too difficult to glue the boards together and took too much time so I gave up on that.
If budget is not really a concern, you should check out Pinata Party KL’s Instagram. Their pinatas look so gorgeous!
I also got Isabel to work on the materials for the Toss-The-Ring game. We bought styrofoam cones and initially thought of decorating it with glitter powder. However, the glitter would not stick and kept coming off, creating a whole lot of mess. I told Isabel that we had to move to Plan B. Isabel replied by saying that Plan B should be to try even harder to make Plan A work… 😛
Unfortunately, my Plan B, which was to paint the horns with poster colours (we didn’t have acrylic paint and I wasn’t going to buy anymore), also did not work. Time for Plan C – I wrapped the horns with gold glitter foam sheets. It was so much easier – why didn’t I think of that in the first place?
To make it look cuter, and to add some colours, I glued a pom-pom on top of each cone.
The day before the party on Saturday, I took leave from work so that I could prepare for the big day. It happened to be the kids’ Report Card Day so school was closed for the day. Isabel was so happy to be able to follow me around to get the rest of the party stuff that we needed.
We went to a printing shop in Sunway to print out the unicorn image for the Pin-The-Unicorn-Horn game.
We also got some fresh flowers to put in the recycled glass jars which I have decorated with some unicorn elements.
Then we went to Balloon Buzz to collect her must-have unicorn balloon.
Later in the day, we started decorating the hall that we rented on the ground floor of our condo.
This is her “Get to work and stop taking photos” face…. 🙂
We finished up the day making a unicorn photo frame.
The next morning, we were all set to have a fun party.
The food arrived right on time – 15 minutes before the start of the party. I managed to find the caterer, Tengku Syazariah, from the Jobs For Caring Moms Malaysia Facebook Group. Her service and food were both awesome!
At 10am, Isabel’s classmates started arriving.
Yes, that’s my unicorn princess in the photo below in her unicorn headband and unicorn tutu skirt.
First thing to get the party started was to start munching!
After everyone had their stomachs full, they couldn’t wait to start the games.
First up was the Pin-The-Unicorn-Horn game.
The next game was everyone’s favourite – whacking the unicorn pinata. The kids were really into smacking the poor thing. Perhaps they were releasing stress?
(Note Daddy in his unicorn headband in the photos below. Wasn’t he cute?)
When the pinata burst, everyone were scrambling over the candies and chocolates that fell out. You would not have thought that Sugus, Mentos, Choki-choki and Kit-Kat could get them so excited.
Around 11am, the much-awaited unicorn cake arrived. I ordered the cake from Eats & Treats from Cake Together. It was so beautiful!
As I did not want to risk having the cake knocked over by the super active kids or touched by any curious fingers, we proceeded straight to cake-cutting.
The vanilla cake was delicious and the kids were arguing over who gets the ears, horn and eyes…
Here’s the group photo of Isabel with her classmates. I was so busy that I forgot to take our family photo… 😦
Immediately after the cake was wolfed down, the kids wanted to play the next game. We played the Toss-The-Ring game, which again I forgot to take photos as I was too engrossed in cheering the kids. They were so excited over it and it got me so excited as well!
Last game of the day was Poison Ball. I had no idea how to play this game and left it to the kids to play by themselves.
Meanwhile, Daddy was getting busy packing more candies and chocolates for the kids to bring home with them.
Sure hope the kids did not get sugar-overdose that day….
And we took photos to remember everyone who came and made Isabel’s party extra magical…
Unfortunately, I missed out some of the kids as they were running all over the place…
By 12pm, parents started arriving to pick up their kids. And that was the end of the 2-hour party which took me weeks of late nights preparation, days of going out to shop for party stuff and a whole lot of money being spent.
Oh well, all that was worth it for my princess’ happy face.
But would I do it again next year? Absolutely NOT! The idea of going on a holiday definitely sounds so much better!
Bringing Up Mummy 