Danny The Idiot - Balloon show party - review

When I had the idea of booking a balloon modeller for the twins' party, I'm so glad I went to Gemma.  She doesn't do balloons but recommended Danny who I immediately booked after hearing what he offers, a whole show of magic, hilarity, balloons and fun.  Perfect!  His show is an hour but he came early to get changed and set up.  We timed the party around it with guests arriving at 10:30 to get the initial excitement over with before his show started at 11, then afternoon tea at 12 followed by general play and the pinata and cake to be finished by 13:30.  It all worked beautifully on the day, helped I think by having just six kids, definitely the way forward people, I really enjoyed it this year as I was able to be so much more organised for a smaller do.

Anyway, Danny started off with some scarf juggling followed by real juggling and was constantly surprising the kids and making them laugh.

Polaroid balloons - party ideas by Bex

A really fun and effective way to decorate a room for a party is with lots of balloons.  I saw an idea on Pinterest using a few gold balloons hovering above a dessert table for a bridal shower and each balloon had a photo hanging from it.  I decided to adapt this for my twins' first birthday party but wanted to actually fill the whole dining room.  I have never been accused of being minimalistic!

Since I designed the twins' nursery with a rainbow theme, we've sort of continued that colour scheme into both their naming ceremony and now 1st birthday.  I bought 100 Belbal balloons in ten different bright colours from Click4Balloons (10 for £1.40) and hired a canister of helium which I picked up locally.

I was offered balloon valves (99p for 100) by the website and I'm so glad I bought them as they saved hours of time fiddling with and tying balloons.  You simply pull each balloon opening over the valve and then push that onto the helium nozzle, which fits perfectly, until the balloon is filled and that's it - it self seals.  They also came with the ribbons already tied on so that saved me even more time!

I ordered 96 Polargram polaroids of the twins (together and separate) taken over their first year.  I cut the ribbons to the length I wanted and taped the photos on before inserting the valves and inflating the balloons on the morning of the party.

I had planned to write a wee note on the bottom of each one, for example "Arriving home - 6 days old" or "Bathtime at 25 weeks", but I ran out of time!

Photo by Take Aim Photography

I hope you'll agree, they look really effective!

Photo by Take Aim Photography

Photo by Take Aim Photography 

Photo by Take Aim Photography

Photo by Take Aim Photography

My son is obsessed with balloons and when his great uncle brought him down in his party outfit and he saw them for the first time, he actually gasped in delight!  I wish I could have gotten a picture of his expression as he pointed at the ceiling of balloons.

Photo by Take Aim Photography

I also have a few ideas for what I can do with the photos now that the party's over so watch this space!

The twins' birthday cakes - recipes by Bex

I had a whole day of baking before the twins' birthday as I wanted to make their cakes myself and I wanted them to have one each.  And then I decided there should also be a third cake for a number one.  And then I thought I may as well make a few cupcakes.  I really don't know when to stop!  Anyway, I found a few recipes I liked the sound of and pinned them.  I planned to try them all out before the big day but only managed one practice lemon cake and ended up ruling that one out as it was nice but quite heavy and stodgy and one chocolate cake for Halloween which was a bit dry so I changed the method slightly and baked it for less time.  I wanted nice, light, moist, delicious cakes.  I think I delivered.  I liked them all anyway (although the chocolate one was still a little drier than I'd hoped).

Here are the recipes I used, in case you fancy trying any of them:

I made these cupcakes for their actual birthday so they'd each have a birthday cake on the day.  It was their first ever taste of cake so I made simple vanilla cupcakes using this cupcake recipe from the BBC.

It worked so well and the cakes were delicious (none survived until the party on Saturday!) so I modified it to make the third sponge cake and luckily it came out just as nicely.  I also made another batch of cupcakes and a few teenie tiny cakes for babies.

For Kalyan's cake I used this chocolate cake recipe by Mary Berry and although I put the ganache in the middle, I used the simple buttercream icing from the cupcakes above to ice all of my cakes.

Priya's lemon cake was absolutely delicious and again I used the same simple icing.  I'll definitely be making this one again!

I spent a long time practising smoothing buttercream icing and spent ages trying to get them as smooth as possible.  I was pretty chuffed with the finished result, although they weren't perfect.

I enjoyed spending a bit of time painting the white initial cake toppers.  In retrospect, I wish I'd decorated the number 1 on the middle as well as you can't see it against the white wall!  I left that one white as I used my rainbow sprinkles on the top of that cake.  I also used the mini bunting I made for the rainbow cake I made for the twins' naming ceremony in May.

I always planned to hang them on the twins' bedroom door with an ampersand after they were used on the cakes.

I had even more fun painting the ampersand post party as I had more time to concentrate on it and mixed more colours to get a good rainbow fade.  I used those colours to improve the P and K as well as neatening the patterns as I'd finished them at about 1am the night before the party in a bit of a hurry!  I'd messed up the chevrons a bit but managed to sort them out.  The ampersand is definitely my favourite though.

Sneak Peek - The Twins' 1st Birthday Party - by Bex

SO MUCH FUN!  Many more to come soon but I just had to share a couple few of the amazing photos that Amy took for us at the twins' first birthday party!

 

The twins' first birthday party plans - by Bex

It will come as no surprise that I am enjoying planning the twins' first birthday.  Neither will it be a surprise that I've turned to Pinterest for ideas and inspiration.  I actually saw a lot of ideas when thinking about both my baby shower and the twins' naming day and kept them all on my Twin Party Ideas board.  Although we're keeping it simple with just cake, drinks and a few nibbles, it's a big deal for us to celebrate their very first birthday so I am going all out on a few details to make it special and the wonderful Amy (remember, the mermaid in the field!) is going to take some photos for us so that's one less thing I need to worry about on the day.

On their actual birthday, Wednesday the 11th, we've both taken the day off work (assuming I'll have started by then!!) and will celebrate just us four as a family.  My idea is to have a nice relaxed morning, opening presents from us then head out.  I think we'll probably go to Brighton to the aquarium as I'd love to see their reaction to the sea life, especially as there is an underwater tunnel there.  Another idea I heard from a local mum was to go to Pooh Corner since we live right next to Ashdown Forest (the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood) and let the babies have a crumpet with honey since they are allowed it once they turn one.  To be honest though, I think the aquarium will win as it's more of a day out and will be more photogenic!  We've booked Laura again for the final part of our bump to baby to one year shoot.  I'm hoping we can do the first hour here and the second hour in the aquarium but we might be better just having the two hours in Brighton with Laura.  Either way, I'm excited!

Anyway, back to the party planning, their party will be on the following Saturday and we've invited a few local friends and family.  None of my family can make it but lots of my southern friends (made through blogging), our neighbours and new friends with babies from around here are coming and my in-laws will be here, I think it's going to be a busy house!  I will make the living room the 'baby entertainment room' with the big paddling pool set up as a ball pit in place of the green chair (which will be relegated to the garage along with the coffee table to give us plenty of space), the rainbow play mat with a few toys and the dancing bear toy which is Kalybopper's current favourite, he gets so excited standing up dancing with the little bear, bless him!

As I said in the post about the invitations, there will be a rainbow theme/colour scheme and LOTS of balloons.  I have bought lots of lovely coloured balloons as seen in the picture on the invite and also have a couple of great fun foil balloons which I'll probably attach to their high chairs and some fab rainbow party hats for all the kids.  The twins' ones will be slightly customised to make them special.  (You might have seen them on my Instagram!)  I also want to make a teeny hat for the zebra I used in my Christmas display which I will have on the table with the cakes.

Probably Actually, via Pinterest

I'll be hanging the honeycomb decorations and rainbow bunting from the naming ceremony around the house and have bought some letter bunting to spell out happy birthday in the living room.  I've also made a giant 3D cardboard number 1 which I plan to jazz up somehow (hopefully with glitter!) to decorate either the living room or dining room and use as a photo prop.  Of course, we also need to utilise our chalkboard on the side of the fridge by making it into one of those awesome detail posters about each twin.  I've already bought the colourful chalk pens for this project, I just need to practice neat writing!

Birthday Chalkboard, via Etsy

I've been working on a slideshow of the babies' first year too and plan to have it on the TV in the background.  I'm going to print 100 of my most favourite of the pictures (I am having trouble choosing just 100!) to display as part of the decor too.

Wedding Chicks, via Pinterest

I will be making the birthday cakes myself and have already done one practice cake which I took to pop-in (I've still to try out a chocolate one but there will be a lemon and a plain sponge too).  They will have one cake each and a third cake with a 1 on it.  There can never be too much cake right??

As for their outfits, I've cut out some 1s from some gorgeous rainbow starry fabric to sew onto long sleeved vests.  Their bottom halves are still TBC.  ;)  (Since writing this post I have sewn them and made the mistake of thinking I knew what to do.  Having read a tutorial afterwards, I now know how I could have made them much neater and much more quickly!  I had a bit of bother with the sewing machine getting a bit jammed due to the soft fabrics - I needed some special needles and some iron on stuff to help during the stitching.  Oops.  They look good from a distance though!)

Starry fabric via Amazon

There's also a colourful pom pom project but I don't want to give away everything I have made until I have photos to share after the party.  I'm just waiting on some more hot glue sticks for my gun so I can finish it!!

One of my favourite things I've made is a garland of different coloured circles made from paint swatches I got WAY back in February 2013.  I always had it in mind that it might be good for a colourful nursery.  Now I've finally made it, it's being used as party decor before I find a permanent home for it - maybe in the playroom on the bookshelves.

I've made the party bags up for the children I already know are coming, I've just been filling them as we go to make sure I have the right number and it's one less big job nearer the time!

Party bags via Party Pieces

Hopefully it's going to look bright and colourful with a few personal details, be great fun and something to remember for years to come.  After all, there's only one very first birthday!

The twins' first birthday party invitation - by Bex

I had a photo in mind for the twins' invitations for
a long time and would have loved to pay someone to take a properly good picture in a studio (as outside isn't really an option any more with the cold, wet weather) but given that I'm already a month late going back to work (I was supposed to be starting my new job today but it's been delayed AGAIN!  Paperwork issues down here are bonkers!) and my maternity pay ran out in March, we've now run out of savings!  Therefore I had to make do with my own skills to try to get the image I had in mind.  It isn't perfect, I may *slightly* regret filling ALL of our walls with various things as I have no plain backdrops to use, but I'm still pleased with it.

This is obviously a blog version without our personal details on but I love the font - Quicksilver.  It was tricky getting both babies happy and comfortable in the basket (kindly on loan from Jude) at the same time and looking at the camera, smiling, etc., etc..  I ended up with a couple of contenders though.  We experimented with placement of the basket, length of balloon ties and having the rug in or not.  I love the colours of the rug but felt in the end it kind of took away from the colours of the balloons.

As you have probably guessed, we're sticking with what has become the colour scheme for the whole of the twins' first year and having rainbow colours again!  (As we did for the nursery decor, playroom decor and naming ceremony decor.)  I'll hopefully have time to write a post about a few birthday party ideas I have.  There will also be a bit of a balloon theme as Kalyan absolutely LOVES balloons!

Anyway, here are the other photos I took of the 'hot air balloon'.