Pirate Party

Our planning and preparation is underway for our Pirate Party. I was VERY excited for this one to happen!

Fear Factor party

So the day arrives. It's tomorrow and we are so excited. This party is for my partner, Sandra's daughter, Dyllan. Basically what we have done is tried to build an audience through our own kids parties and then the plan is to work our butts off planning and supplying for other kids parties.

The Fear Factor party seems to have fallen into place so nicely. The Harry Potter one was a learning curve, even though it went fantastically well!

Here are some pics of the stuff we have made, without giving too much away to the kids coming to the party!

The invitations

The food labels

The signs

The lollipops

The Barf Bags (goodie bags)

The party

Well, Saturday came and it was a flurry of activity from wake up to bed time. Insanity would be a better word! Unfortunately our venue was only available from 12:30 and our party started at 3pm. Big mistake—huge! With only 2.5 hours to set up signs, flags, games, the dinner table, hanging candles, the Divination table, the Room of Requirement table, the Quidditch balloons, the egg hunt, the photo booth, the 93/4 wall and sign, food and drinks we ran our butts off for 2.5 hours!

I have never worked so hard and so fast in my life, and I was in advertising for 10 years! I couldn't have done it without my gorgeous party partner, Sandra, and our devoted men, Matt and Henri, not to mention Jade and Ben!

At 2:45 kids started arriving and Sandra and I hadn't even got into our Bellatrix and Trellawny outfits yet. My daughter and her boyfriend had to take the kids on an egg hunt so that we could very quickly go and get changed!

Another unfortunate thing is our photographer was held up, so we asked 'Dobby' and 'Snape' to take our pictures and they had other jobs to do on the day. We didn't get a picture of the venue in its entirety,  and the action shots were taken on an auto setting!

In the end, it all worked out though. The kids and their parents were blown away, which is exactly what we wanted. We wanted them all to have a great time and go away saying that they want a Smoochie party too. 

The pics we do have are below.

The emergency egg hunt, Sandra's little Luna Lovegood on the far left

The not-quite-finished table with Divination table in the distance

A close-up of the table

The wands, party-packs and certificates

 Dobby and Snape

Hagrid and Hermione

Balloon Quidditch

Hermione and young Bellatrix

Hagrid and a blurry older Bellatrix

 

The Sorting hat, ready to sort

Dobby serving butter beer

Sandra's cake (OMG!) with cauldron candle holder 

Hermione and her birthday cake

The take-away party packs

It's almost here!

The party happens in 2 days. Sandra and I are so excited. It has been a very busy week, to say the ABSOLUTE least but everything has fallen into place. 20 young boys and girls have RSVP'd and we look forward to giving them the best Harry Potter party ever!

Here are some images of the stuff we have done so far.

The invitations with treated envelope

The hand sewn Sorting Hat

The butter beer glasses with labels and water bottles

 Water bottles with Polyjuice Potion labels

 The party packs containing magical candies, a gift and chips

The slimy frog soaps

A close up of the slimy frog soap

The Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans

Getting ready for the first party!

So, we are going to create a kids party of EPIC proportions and that is how we plan to 'advertise' our product. It is going to be so much work, but doing this kind of thing makes it difficult to differentiate between work and play. We are loving it so far and are having way too much fun!

It has been a bit frantic for the last few days. Realising that we only have 20 days till the Harry Potter party has been a little bit scary, to say the least. There is so much to be done, invites to design and send out, heaps to print, cakes to practice, signs to create, print and adhere to board. There are games to think up, food to prepare, prizes to choose, robes to sew—pheeeew—and then some....

These are some of the potion labels which we have stuck to various sized glass bottles, spray-painted wands, a party pack, aged envelopes and a chocolate frog box. These will all be part of the Harry Potter themed pack.