Category: Birthday

Planning Children’s Parties

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Children’s party entertainment is something that many parents lose sleep over. Where do you find something that will keep your kids busy and engaged for the whole duration of the party, and something that they haven’t already seen before? It’s a challenge most parents would gladly forgo, so Red Masque is here to help. We have access to an eclectic mix of party games, party entertainers and a fund of children’s birthday party ideas that are new and different.

It’s quite challenging thinking up every year of something ‘special’ and different for the right reasons for your child’s/teenagers birthday this is why Red Masque hold the key to taking the stress out of trying to think of something unique.

Why not look on an entertainment directory, where you can hire only the best children’s party entertainment, for any age group, which can thrill, enthral and astound the audience; from balloon modellers to magicians, street dancers to caricaturists and even green screen photography entertainments, plus a whole series of indoor and outdoor games which include:

Indoor –

Dance Machines, 

Photo Booths, 

Table Football, 

Air Hockey and Skittles.

Bubble and Smoke machines

Karaoke

Balloon Modellers

Face Painters

Outdoor – 

Funfair Stalls, 

Giant outdoor games Connect 4, Kerplunk etc.

Giant Scalextrics.

Bouncy Castles

Fairground rides

Make sure you check out the entertainer’s policies so everything runs as smoothly as possible.  Looking on an entertainment directory, you will be spoilt for choice and it will definitely give you ‘food for thought’ there will be something for everybody’s tastes!!

Happy Birthday sweet 16

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Sweet 16 is a time of coming of age and celebrating it in true style. Many 16th birthday parties are becoming quite similar these days so why not make your 16th birthday party one to remember.

Firstly, choose a venue; this could be your own house. Secondly choose a theme. Trust us, this will make your 16th birthday party that extra bit more unique and give your guests the excitement leading up to your party.

Finally, your party entertainment… make your 16th birthday party stand out from the crowd and have some of the most interesting and lively entertainment. Underneath is a variety of 16 birthday party entertainment ideas to help you!

DJ – Every party needs great music. You will not need to worry about changing songs over on your IPod when a DJ can do it all for you by using the latest technology. You can tell the DJ exactly what music you would like played so your music can be catered specifically for you!

16th Birthday Party Entertainers

Photo booth – Why not keep a little memory of your 16th birthday party night by hiring a photo booth. Your guests will have so much fun trying on colourful props and overall having fun in the photo booth. Instant photos will be available for your guests and you will receive a DVD of all photos taken on the night.

Themed nights– Give your party that Vegas feel by having your very own fun casino. Spin the wheel, place your fun bets and have a laugh with all your guests. The Fun Casino is a great way to get your friends having a laugh and the style of entertainment is top class. Nobody else will have a casino at their 16th!

Magician – A walk around hired magician is perfectly suited to a Sweet 16 party. The magician will stun your guests with various tricks that will definitely catch them out. The magician could also be a comedian on the side, so Dynamo mixed with a bit of Lee Evans will go down a storm at your 16th birthday party.

16th Birthday Party Food

Fish and Chip Van – If you are unsure of the catering you would like for your party, then why not hire out a fish and chip van. The food caters for everybody’s tastes and your guests will enjoy their very own freshly cooked food. You can tailor the food to your requirements as well, burgers, sausages, goujons… whatever you want you can have!

Overall, enjoy your 16th birthday party. This is your big night; it’s not every day you take that step from a childhood to adulthood. Your 16th birthday party will be all about you, show it off, and make sure to get the perfect entertainment for your party. But the best thing you can do is smile and create some amazing memories and plan the best 16th birthday party ideas right here!

Birthday cake from scratch

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One of my school Mum’s had never made a cake, let alone a birthday cake. Her son was quite specific about he wanted too – A Lego style theme! So the heat was really on.

When she posted the cake of Facebook we were all rather surprised how great it really was. We asked her a few questions, and this may help you decide if this is something you would like to do?

Given that you’d never made a cake before, what made you decide to make your own cake instead of buying one?

I think there’s something about making things yourself which brings about a sense of achievement and satisfaction. I knew finding a cake with everything my son was currently into would be a challenge and so I decided to take on the challenge myself and add a Mummy’s personal touch! I did have a look at the price of cakes and felt I wasn’t able to justify the expense and so found it so much cheaper ordering what I needed from the internet. I took inspiration from google images and Pinterest and thought I’d give it a go.

What was the theme and why did you choose it?

It was a mix of Lego with a little touch of football and pirates! This was part of the reason why I decided to make it myself, as I wanted to incorporate all his favourite themes onto the cake and make it extra special.

How easy was it?

I did ask a friend to help with the sponge as I am no baker! I then iced the cakes and the cake board (after a couple of goes at it) and handmade the decorations. I wanted everything to be edible and so it was (except for the little Lego men). I know the way children love to pull bits off the cake and gobble them up! I made the decorations whilst in front of the TV a couple of nights before the actual party to make it more manageable

Would you do it again?

I would definitely do it again! Once you start a challenge like this, you’d be amazed at how rewarding it is and how creative you can actually be.

What was your son’s reaction to the cake?

I was up on the last night putting together all the final touches pretty late, but in the morning I showed my son and he hugged me and told me how much he loved it! To see his genuinely sincere reaction showed me he was impressed and I had passed! It was all definitely worth it just for that.

Making a birthday cake is of course a fair bit more work than buying it, but it can be a lot of fun, and as Sarah said herself, it’s a great way to involve your child in the party planning process. It’s always nice to have your own personal cake at the end of it for your child’s birthday party.

Party Invitations made easy

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The invitations to any party are very important. This is one of the first things you should do when planning a children’s birthday party. So here are some great top tips for how to go about your invites.

Ready Made Options –
This is perhaps the perfect time to point out that you can get some great templates on the website for anyone that is stuck for ideas. Many of them can be printed off for free. 

Don’t Hang Around –

It’s important that you give your guests plenty of time to respond to your invites and so you need to get them out in good time before the event. Depending on when your party is, (busy times such as bank holidays and Christmas may need longer) about a month before the occasion is probably best. This should give most people enough time to reply and will also mean the date is firmly in their diary should anything else come up.
Consider Going Straight to the Parents –  
Although it’s exciting for a child to receive an invitation to their friend’s party, children can often forget to pass these onto their parents. You may therefore want to hand the invitations directly to the relevant adults so that you get a swift RSVP. Alternatively, you could get your child to hand them out to their friends but do then check with the parents of the children, that they know about it, in case the invite never made it home. Another option is asking the teacher of your child’s class to put them in the children’s book bags.
Have A Crafty Day –   
If you would prefer to create your own invites rather than use the ones on our We party’s website, then why not have a craft day in order to do this. Set out everything you need to make your child’s own invitations and then work on them together. Kids find this very exciting. This way they can have a bigger say in their party and they can show off their arts and craft skills to all their friends.
Try to Include Everyone – 
When inviting children to the party, it’s often hard to know who should get an invite. The amount of guests that can come will obviously depend on the size of the venue and the budget you have for the party, but where possible it’s a good idea to not leave anyone out and simply invite the whole class at school. If you don’t then some children (and parents) are bound to get upset. Some schools actually ask that you do invite the whole class if you are giving out invites on the school grounds, so it’s an idea to check what the school policy is with this. 
Check All the Information Is Correct –  
Before you send out the invites check that all the information on them is correct. This sounds obvious, but the last thing you want is for people to show up an hour early because you put the wrong time on the invites. Make sure you have included the address of the venue, what time the party starts and finishes, what day and date it is on and whether there is any specific dress code in line with your party theme. You may also want to add that parents are welcome to stay for the duration of the party if you decide you are happy for them to do so. We’d actually suggest they don’t stay (if the children are old enough) because the background noise made by parents charting can actually mean kids can’t hear the entertainer as well and it has an adverse effect on the children’s party. Of course it’s understandable that you may want parents to stay but we’d suggest that if they do, you have a separate room for them to be in.

Hosting an outdoor children’s party

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Providing the weather holds, there is nothing more exciting for children than an outdoor party. Rather than being cooped up inside, the fresh air and additional space will do your guests good and give them new terrain to explore. Here are a few top tips if you’re thinking about hosting a children’s party in the garden or a hired outdoor space:

Plenty of food
An array of party foods will go down a treat. Try to ensure that you:

• Balance healthy and sugary snacks, avoiding too many E numbers
• Keep fluid levels up with regular drinks, particularly on hot days
• Provide shaded seating while children are eating

Games
No party is complete without games, and being outdoors will give you plenty of scope. Depending on the size of your garden and the age of the kids attending you could also arrange a:

• Treasure hunt
• Water balloon battle (best to advise for kids to have a change of clothes with them though)
• Messy flour and water game – where you have 2 tubs (one filled with water and the other with flour.) The kids have to use only their mouth to ‘fish’ out a sweet in a tub full of water and then they have to do the same in a tub of flour. Only once they do it with flour, they will end up with their faces covered in it- loads of fun!!! They must keep their hands behind their back at all times!
• Relay race
• Talent show – get the kids into groups and give them ideas of what they could do e.g. sing, do a funk dance they make up for themselves, a mini play, a mini x factor style competition, or whatever they like.
• Obstacle course – another fun idea is to set up some pegs either side of the garden with string either side and tell the kids that the string are laser beams that they have to crawl under, like a spy or just a cool obstacle course game. If you have garden toys, e.g. a slide (where they have to slide down the slide before coming back through the ‘laser beam maze’ or paddling pool (where they have to fish something out of the pool full of water and bring it back through the laser beam maze).

With a bit of imagination – a lot of fun can be had!!!

Kids Party Entertainment
Professional children’s entertainers can really take the pressure off you as a host as well as making the birthday boy or girl feel really special. We have plenty of entertainment packages that are perfect for a spring party or birthday celebrations.
Children’s party entertainers bring so much fun to any party and can include some great activities such as:

• Magic tricks
• Puppet shows
• Comedy
• Musical or dance-based activities
• Balloon modelling
• Exciting themes
• Science parties
• Clowns
• Discos and more

Children’s Party Themes
Introducing a theme can pull all of the above elements together. For example, if your children’s entertainers will be doing magic tricks, a magician or wizard theme goes down well. The children can dress up as their favourite character and the food and games could have a magical theme incorporated too. If you’re planning an outdoor treasure hunt, guests could come dressed as pirates and your children’s entertainers can include a cool pirate theme throughout.

A Disco Roller skating party

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This party was inspired by a family who hired out a hall for a roller skating party, loads of fun was had by all and of course it wore everybody out!!

Kids party invitations:

Invitations were homemade and drawn skates on each piece of card shaped into a ‘roller-skate’. The time and venue were written and also the duration etc.…

Kids party venue:

A hall at the local gym is able to accommodate ‘roller-skating’ and because it was a council run sports centre it was really reasonable as in price.  It was £50 for an hour and we had to include the food etc. 40 Children were invited and the venue was just the right size – not too big and not too small.

Glow necklaces were purchased for each child and as the lights dimmed everyone’s glow sticks started to glow.  They played the standard skating rink games of limbo and the dice game and each winner was given a “prize”. They skated for 1 1/2 hrs and then it was time for cake.

Kids party food:

They had pizza delivered and had a cake. For the cake they made a girl with blond hair and blue eyes out of fondant. It was made sure she had on a pair of skates and an outfit to match what the birthday girl was wearing that day. 

At the end the guests got downloaded pictures of the day and on the pictures read ‘Thank you for sharing in my 6th Birthday’. 

Ice-skating party ideas

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My daughter is just celebrated her ninth birthday, and we were also moving at the same time so we needed something that wouldn’t require too much children’s birthday party planning, money, and most importantly – a house! That is when my daughter asked if we would be able to do an ice skating party. Of course, I thought this would be a great idea since it was not our home, so we wouldn’t need to clean up or plan much.  So, the next day I called up the local skating rink and they told me I could rent a party room for 3 hours for only £80. This was great!  

Then, my daughter and I picked up some nice stationary from a hobby craft shop and wrote all the information down on a piece of it – one for each guest (we invited 12). 

The day of the party, we went to the rink early to set up the tables and decorations, and to rent the skates (we had called everyone in advance and asked what shoe size they were). The skates were complimentary with the party room.    

An hour later, almost all of the guests had arrived so they got their skates on and met up with one of the rink instructors who would be leading the party. For about an hour, she showed them tricks and they played a variety of skating games.   

Later, they were called to lunch were they were given their choice of pizza, hot dog, or chicken nuggets. We also laid out hot chocolate so they could come back from skating to get some whenever they wanted.

When they finished lunch, they went back to skating and there was disco lights and music playing! They skated to cool music and light show for about 30 minutes, when they got tired and decided to come back in and open gifts. Before they knew it, it was time to go.  

They were each given their goodie bags which were supplied by the rink. They were a plastic bag with an ice skate on it, an ice skate keychain, sweets, ice skating pencil, and other traditional party bag treats.  

This party was great – they had fun, there was no clean up, it was extremely inexpensive, and it required about 30 minutes of planning!

Skateboard Party

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This was done for a 9-year-old boy’s birthday who was made about skateboards. There were girls and boys.  The theme was Skateboard Olympics. 

Invite: 

Cut-outs of skateboards telling them to skate on over to “name” 9th Birthday bash! I asked them to bring their skateboards or rollerblades and safety equipment. As each child arrived they got a large # for the back of their shirt and a score card that listed all the activities that they were going to be judged on. 

Games: 

There was a ramp and as they were called they got 2 chanced to freestyle on the ramp, a few of the guests were chosen as judges and they held up large numbers, their scores were wrote on their score cards, etc.  

The 2nd was a bean bag toss on the skateboards, the buckets had points on them and they got 2 chances to make it in to the bucket of their choice, the scores were put on their cards, 

3rd activity was skateboard limbo, the each time the stick dropped they got 5 points, their totals were put on the score cards, 

4th was Skateboard trick, again we used the judges and score cards. After all of that was done they were totalled them up while they were hitting the skateboard piñata.  

They played balloon pop (kids used their heads and a needle) they picked a balloon 1-20 and that’s the one they had to pop. The balloons were filled with, water, flour, confetti, skateboard cut-outs that had on the back what they won, etc. It was a lot of fun! 

A skateboard shaped cake and sub sandwiches. After the gifts and cake was done they had all of the kids sit in a circle so they could have an award ceremony and pictures. The birthday boy gave award & prizes out as their names were called, and they took their picture with the Birthday boy.

Prizes:

Computer made certificates, ribbons, mini trophies, skate board keychains, ramps, grab bags, etc. at the end of the award ceremony the Birthday boy tossed confetti on everyone it was great.

Mad about Mario

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This particular boy loves Nintendo, especially Mario, so for his 9th birthday party he had a Mario themed Birthday party.   

Mario desktop wallpaper on Nintendo’s website which was used to make invitations. On the front with the picture it said It’s a Mario Party and Josh is turning 9 won’t you join us and have a good time?”. On the back was a map to out place as well as all the party info. 

It was an outdoor party so for decorations there hung blue plastic tablecloths along the fence and placed cut-outs of Mario goombahs coin blocks and hills that was drawn on poster board. 

Music was downloaded from the games which was copied to CD and was played in the background. When the children arrived they were given a fake moustache. They were also given red visors with the letter M painted on it (like Mario’s hat) which was really handy since it was so sunny outside.  

After all the children had arrived they played a balloon pop game. There were also stuck gold plastic coins or pictures of goombas and other villains in balloons and inflated them. The children had so much fun popping the balloons! The children with the most coins won a little Mario toy that was bought.

The next game was Mario Party musical “chairs”. Instead of chairs they put a picture of each character on a piece of construction paper and put them on the ground in a circle. 

Next the children decorated their own Mario sun catchers. There was a piece of masking tape on the back that could write each children name on so we could tell them apart when the paint dried.   

For the cake it was covered on a sheet cake in green icing and put a Mario figurine on top. To make it look like a scene from the game then added mini marshmallows for clouds mini chocolate bars for blocks a gummy mushroom and premade cake letters that said “Joshua 009” like the score keeper on the game. 

After cake the gifts were opened and the children got to take turns playing Mario Party 5 on two of the GameCube’s or Super Mario Brothers on the NES that was set up around the house.  

Night club disco theme

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13 is a big birthday (welcome to the teen years!) and this girl wanted to do something really fun to celebrate it! This teenage party theme is definitely not only for 13 yr. olds. It can be adapted for any age group! This party is just going to be between me and eight of my girlfriends. That way we can just be crazy and laugh and just hang out without having to worry about impressing any boys.

INVITATIONS: I’m just going to e-mail my friends their invitations.

ACTIVITIES: My friends are going to show up at my house, eat dinner (pizza), have snacks (crisps, peanuts etc.) and drink some coke or lemonade and stuff like that. Then we’ll eat cake and open presents.

After that, my family is going to drive my friends to the local cinema to go see a movie. Once the movie is over, we’ll come back to my house, and just party! They will stay overnight and leave at 10:30 the next morning.

DECORATIONS: When my friends first arrive at my house, the furniture will be rearranged a little bit. Because my dad plays in a band, he owns lots of stage lights that will be set up. Those will be the only things up. However, while my friends and I are at the movie, my family will be hard at work turning my house into Club 13″.

Once my friends arrive back at my house there will be glow-sticks hanging from the ceiling the room will be dark and the stage lights will be flashing! There will be some Christmas lights lining the room too. I’m going to borrow a huge disco ball from a friend as well as a couple little ones and hang them from the ceiling. I will also borrow a fog machine from my dad’s friend and use that just to add something really cool. I want a strobe light really badly so we’re going to look and see if we can rent one!

GAMES: There won’t be too many games available but we will be doing karaoke. When things start to wind down we can play low-key games.

Party Bags. my party bags will be filled with sweets and snacks that the girls can take with them to the movie. Rather than buying expensive popcorn at the theatre I’ll fill some bags up with a bag of popcorn some sweets some little chocolate bars and a bag of crisps. The girls will also get the choice of a can of coke or a water bottle to take with them. That way they can really enjoy their party bags and my family won’t have to break the bank! I hope that my party turns out really well and I also hope that I inspired you for your next party!!!”