It was Stephen's 3rd birthday last Friday, and I (some say foolishly!) decided to have his party at home for the first time. I really wanted to have a theme, and inspired by some amazing parties that I have seen on various blogs, I chose a circus theme.After quite a few weeks of planning, and days of cooking, we ended up having a fantastic party yesterday! Stephen had a great time, and this morning was asking when we could have another birthday party!
Above is a pic of the table setting for the kids. For the circus theme, I decided to keep the colour theme red and white, rather than multi coloured. I struck it lucky with the kids chairs which I hired. When I went to pick them up, they had a choice of red, white or blue chairs, so of course, I went with red.
This is a close up of the individual place settings. The cups, plates and napkins are from Pink Frosting, a wonderful online store full of party ware that is themed, but in an elegant way, not the licensed Disney character way! I fell in love with the old fashioned paper straws and I had to have them as part of the party, even though this involved the expensive (and ridiculous, according to hubby, though he humoured me) exercise of ordering them from Modern Lola in the US.
This is the birthday boy about to enjoy the homemade berry punch.
This is the table in action; the kids really seemed to like the homemade party food! We had lots of traditional party foods, such as fairy bread, marshmallow cones, popcorn, choc crackles, sugar cookies and orange jelly wedges. For hot food, I made wholemeal pizza scrolls, mini chicken and regular sausage rolls and chicken strips. I topped the cupcakes with little premade icing decorations. While I love party hats, I have to assume that children don't share my affliction, as I didn't see one child put one on :(
To decorate the back wall of the courtyard, I wanted to create somewhat of a circus tent feel, so I draped some red and white striped fabric across the back wall, and hung a string of paper lanterns in front.
The adults food table was decorated with some red and white polka dot fabric and balloon bouquets. Some of the food was the same as the kids' food, since who doesn't like kids' party food; I also made little quiches, peking duck crostini and marinated boccocini. Yummy!
Here is the cake in all its glory! I can't take credit for the design, since I blatantly copied a circus cake found here but in red and white rather than multicoloured. The cake turned out so much better than I expected! It took Mum and I more than a few hours to bake and ice, but it was so worth it. I was particularly excited with how the circus tent topper came up. Making this involved a LOT of cursing and almost tears it was so frustrating to make. But worth it in the end.
