I cannot believe that it is just over two weeks until Wesley's first birthday! How has it almost been a year since my super quick labour and delivery that nearly had me giving birth in a hospital hallway. My not so little baby is now becoming a toddler and he deserves a first birthday party that reflects his cheeky, wilful and loving personality.
A while ago I decided I wanted to throw him a little gentleman's tea party, traditional and vintage in style incorporating iconic symbols of the stereotypical British gentleman including moustaches, bow ties and braces. Keeping to a typically British colour scheme of red white and blue, I thought I'd share with you some of lovely decorations and party wear I have been collecting as well as the invitation, the tea party menu and appropriate attire.
If you are planning a kids party the essentials you will need are: A table cloth/covering, paper plates and napkins, plastic cutlery, straws, bunting and banners and balloons. If you are catering for a lot of children then you might like to make up some little party bags for your smaller guests and If you are planning on making homemade cakes you will need cakes and cake decorations.
The first thing I purchased was these moustache printed paper plates and napkins which are available from ebay
here. They offer a whole moustache party range intended for anyone throwing 'Movember' parties (growing moustaches in november for male cancer awareness) but these were perfect for my little gentleman theme. Disposable party wear tends to be more expensive when its printed with a nice design so to keep the cost down alternate them with some plain plates and napkins too which are a lot cheeper. I choice to buy one pack of moustache plates and one pack of plain red ones and the same with napkins placing a moustache napkin on the plain red plates and a plain napkin on the moustache plates.
When searching for other moustache themed party wear I found some amazing items on one of my favourite websites
thedotcomgiftshop. The sell a range of party ware called 'Barber Shop' that included these lovely red and white striped paper straws with moustache detail and a cupcake decorating kit. I am planning on making a batch of lemon cupcakes so this kit was perfect as it includes matching red and white striped cupcake cases and little moustache flags then you stick in the top of the cake. These items look so stylish and are very reasonably priced, a great way of jazzing up the look of your party I was extremely impressed.
In my local 99p shop I found another pack of paper straws these ones were a mixture of blue and white striped and red with white stars. As they followed the same colour these and were only 99p for a pack of 30! I though it was a great way of bulking out the more expensive straws yet still looking the part.
Also from
thedotcomegiftshop I found an amazing bargain! This vintage style paper bunting was only around £2 and it is so well made with large sturdy pennants. Bunting is essential for a typically British party and is a great way of adding decoration to a room. I already had a few packs of plain coloured balloons left over from a previous birthday party which I am going to use also.
Some birthday banners can look rather tacky in my opinion but when I saw this in Clintons Cards for only £4.99 I knew I had to get it. A create your own banner kit means you can personalise the birthday banner adding any name and if gentle reuse the kit over and over again.
Lastly I bought a blue and white polka dot plastic table covering to jazz up the dining table so that it all coordinates nicely. These are so so cheep from ebay around about the £1.99 mark and you can get them in all sorts of colours and patterns, they are very handy especially with lots of small sticky fingers present!
Being a graphic design graduate I designed and made the invitations myself using photoshop and a lot of inspiration from Pinterest! Again I used the red, white and blue colour scheme and some illustrations which tied in with the parties theme.
The food I am making for the tea party includes mini submarine rolls with several different fillings, a bowl of salad, a pasta salad, homemade quiche, homemade mini pizza squares and nibbles and deserts will be cupcakes, chocolate brownies, a rainbow fruit platter and birthday cake!
The boys will be both sporting appropriate attire for little British gentlemen, bow ties and braces from the lovely Charming Arthur you can see my fill review of these items
here.
Planning kids parties is so much fun, I hope this gives you some inspiration!
Thank you for reading!
LouLou.
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