A perfect birthday party for a 3-year-old girl

It was no surprise when Miss J requested a PINK party to celebrate her 3rd birthday. Recently pink has become her favourite colour, and we happen to have a lot of it in this house! Miss A had the same preoccupation with the colour pink at the same age.

I toyed with the idea of hosting Miss J’s party elsewhere, having been to some great parties lately. But instead I opted for a low key affair at home and I reckon I got it right. It was a relatively stress free event which didn’t cost much in terms of dollars or my sanity. The key was keeping the numbers down. Last year Miss J got a bit overwhelmed by the excitement so this year we only invited a few cousins and a couple of friends. All the party guests were preschoolers and I kept it short. An hour and a half is plenty for a 3-year-old.

Naturally the cake had to be pink. For Miss J’s 2nd birthday party I laboured over reproducing an old classic, The Castle Cake, from the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook. Whilst the cake was a hit, the effort was enormous. So, I lowered my standards this year and halved the effort. I bought a love-heart shaped cake tin; baked a simple butter cake; and lathered it with pink buttercream icing. And just to add a bit more sugar and a bit more colour, I topped it with pink smarties.

How cute are these little guys?! And they are super easy too. All you need is snack sized milky way bars, melted chocolate, smarties, tiny teddies and, voila , you have Teddy Racing Cars. Initially I tried gently placing the teddy bears into the milky way bars but the chocolate cracked too much. So I did a bit of excavation work and the result was much better!

Pink milk bottles. – a little bit fancy. The pink milk is simply Big M stawberry flavour and the bottles can be re-used as vases or craft containers. I am sure they will make an appearance at the next birthday party!

Pink spotty plates, pink stripey straws and pink windmills decorated the party table. I kept the savoury food simple and easy: sausage rolls and salmon sushi (for just a little more pink). Cheap and easy. All I had to do was slice up the sushi rolls and present it on a cupcake tier stand.

Not officially pink but the party bags met approval as her second favourite colour happens to be “all the colours of the rainbow”. Gotta love a $2 shop for the loot: small tub of play dough, a tube of glitter glue, an eraser, a mini highlighter, and a snack sized box of smarties.

 

Her eyes beamed when she saw the pretty pink wrapping paper. And then….she tore it to shreds! The presents may have been wrapped in pink but there was no pink within. A couple of books, a puzzle, and a much desired train set.

 

And that concludes my girls’ parties for 2013. Thank goodness!

Miss J in her new pink party dress, of course!

Hip, Hip, Horay!! Happy Birthday Miss J.