Tomorrow my daughter will take cupcakes to pre-primary for her birthday. This is what we spent this afternoon making. Well, she spent about 4 minutes before it became too monotonous and she left to dig holes in the garden. Leaving me to finish the last 38 flower pots….
To make these little flower pots you need iced chocolate cake for the ‘dirt’. I bought a ready made one and mashed it together then spooned it into the mini shot cups. The flower is made of 5 regular sized M&M’s around 1 Mini M&M. They are fixed to the spoon with a dot of melted white chocolate. For the leaves I cut a Spearmint Leaf lolly in half. Once the children eat the flower they can use the spoon to eat the pot of cake. I’m hoping they get a kick out of eating ‘dirt’. Click here for the full recipe and instructions(Pdf)

Thanks for looking!

*Tragic postscript: On the way to school this morning she dropped the entire tray of 40 flowers…For a moment we could only stare, in mute horror, at the mangled mess.  As the tears began welling in her eyes, I found my voice and said “Oh well, at least they’ll still taste great!” She happily agreed and we salvaged what we could. My fault for letting her carry it…*

Disposable mini shot cups can be found at party supply stores or discount shops such as ‘Red Dot’. They are obviously growing in popularity as more and more places seem to be stocking them. Which is peculiar as I have never seen them used for actual alcoholic drinks. Though, perhaps that is more a reflection of the kind of parties I now go to. I can’t remember the last party I went to that didn’t have a pinata or round of pass the parcel.

These cups are perfect for serving kids party food. The cups measure only 40mm in height. The sweet foods are not only super cute to look at, they make smaller, healthier portion sizes. The best part is all the ingredients are ready made – no cooking required. All cups featured use cream spray on the top. This can be found in the chilled dairy section. The spray needs to be applied  just before serving as it collapses quickly. Also, some recipes use ‘Yogo’. For non-Australians, this is a flavoured pudding found in the dairy section. (If anyone has a brand local to their area please add it to my comments!)

Click here for Jelly Cup Recipe

This pot is made by layering sheets of tissue paper and paper mache glue. The type of glue used here is called ‘Mix-a-Paste’, sometimes known as ‘Methyl Cellulose’. It comes in a powdered form from craft stores (eg Jacksons), but I think it is very similar to wallpaper paste. If neither of those options are available, try ordinary paper glue such as Clag or watered down PVA. Methyl Cellulose is a very ecomomical adhesive. A very small amount of powder makes alot of glue when mixed with water. Although it isn’t a strong adhesive, it is perfect for paper projects such as this one.

You will need: red & green tissue, glue, brush, scissors, green pipecleaner and 2 bowls. The bowls I have used are about 11cm in diameter and 7cm in height – but anything close to that size will be fine. Allow 2 days to make this one as the pots need to dry overnight before you can remove them from the bowls.

Click here for instructions (Pdf)

What is this? It’s a paper mache football for holding party favours….obviously! To make these you will need some bowls to use as moulds. I used paper bowls as I needed to make many footballs in one go (see my assembly line below), but a normal, round bottomed, bowl from your kitchen will work fine. The footballs are comprised of 4 small sheets of brown tissue, glue and wool – plus the treats inside. Click here for full instructions (Pdf)

Following on from my last ‘Strawberry Pot‘ post, this is a bowl made using the same technique of layering tissue paper and paper mache glue.

The Sunflower Bowl is very simple to make as you only need to layer 8-12 sheets of tissue rather than many small pieces of torn paper as you would in normal paper mache. Pictured below is a lid I made using the same technique but with brown tissue. Click here for full instructions (PDf)

Traditionally, a Lamington is spongecake covered with chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. This is an extension of a previous post I did – Strawberry Heart Lamingtons. I make coloured Lamingtons by covering chunks of spongecake in syrup instead of chocolate.  The syrup is a combination of jelly crystals, butter, water and icing sugar. The fish lolllies (from Big W) are stuck on the top with a small dollop of melted White Chocolate Melts. Click here for full recipe and instructions(Pdf)

Don’t forget my Ebook - only $9.95!

24 fun projects – most of which are not featured on the site. All projects have detailed instructions and easy to follow, full colour photos of each step in the craft making process.

Here is a novel method of serving the food at your next kids party. Pictured above is a decorated Styrofoam cone with plastic spoons inserted into the sides. This project is not too difficult to achieve but there are a few steps in the process. Especially if you make more than one recipe to fill the spoons with! Click here for full instructions and recipes

Lemon Cheesecake

White Choc Crackle

Marshmallow Spoon

The cone pictured has a coat of pink acrylic and a crepe flower on the top. You need to stick it to the serving tray with double sided foam tape to prevent it from toppling over when the spoons are removed.
Finally, to serve the party spoon tower I have used a cheap vanity mirror I found at the discount shop. I glued 3 glass stones to the base so it is easy to pick up.

This is an easy activity for a children’s party. Provide jugs of primary coloured drinks and the children can mix new colours and flavours to make fun ‘mocktails’ For the ingredients, explore the drinks aisle of your local supermarket. If you cannot find the right colours, try adding a little food colouring to lemonade. In these examples I have used a combination of raspberry cordial, lemonade, pineapple juice and colouring. The cups are decorated with ‘Crepe Flower Ties‘ from the previous post.

*Tips* Make a weak solution of blue and a medium/weak solution of red, otherwise the drinks will turn out too dark. If you are using food colouring, try using ‘Rose Pink’ instead of plain red as it will produce a better range of colours.

‘Colour Mixing Mocktails’ instructions here

Why is every toy we buy secured with thousands of little twisty-plastic-wire thingos? Who decided that all toys must now be fastened in a manner appropriate for a suspension bridge or deep sea oil rig? As if removing them isn’t hard enough, it is always accompanied by an hysterically excited child, incredulous that you could take this long to extricate a piece of plastic from it’s packaging.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and you’re running out of valuable time to prepare all the party food for the battalion of savages -sorry – children who will shortly arrive to raze your house to the ground…

My despair turned to delight when I finally found a use for these annoying wire fasteners: as stems for crepe flowers to wind around objects. In this case the object is plastic cups for a children’s party. You can use either crepe or tissue paper for this project.

Cut thin strips

Dot of PVA

Kink the wire & attach

Roll the crepe around

More PVA for the end

Secure the base

Click the link below for more detailed instructions on how to make these flower ties. The next post will be “Colour Mixing Mocktails” in which we will make fun drinks to fill the cups with.

Click here for ‘Crepe Flower’ instructions

These are made using Milk Arrowroot Biscuits. Chosen, obviously, because they are oval/egg shaped. If you’ve never seen, nor heard of, a Milk Arrowroot, you are clearly not reading this in Australia! But hopefully oval shaped, plain biscuits or cookies are available in your area.

The decorations featured are ‘Sour Straps’ and ‘Mini M&Ms’. However, most supermarkets will have a dazzling array of confectionary to chose from.

Click here for “Easter Egg Cookies” recipe.