Birthday Hijinks

December may be given over to Christmas (despite being the birthday months of my friends, father-in-law and the fabulous Miss B) but the party doesn't stop with New Year.  With more birthdays than you can shake a stick at, January is a busy month too.

Miss B has more birthdays than the Queen. She had her ACTUAL birthday in December, celebrated with just us, a party tea in early January with her best friend Olivia and our ace WildThing Family mates who came to visit, and her party with school friends in mid January, which was divided into a party for 7 and a sleepover for 3. More of that in a moment.

Zach became a teenager this past month. We went out for dinner as a family on the night itself. With mates he didn't want a big celebration, just some close friends to sleep over after gaming through the night. He wanted a black forest cake like the one mentioned in Portal and Portal 2, but everyone knows that cake is a lie.  It said so right on top of it.
(piped with not-properly-melted chocolate on not-quite-set icing as he came down the stairs, so it was pretty messy)

Two nieces, my brother and my mum all have January birthdays as well. I'd taken over gifts for Neil and the girls with the Christmas stuff, but was uselessly behind with Mum's present.  I was making her a padded iPad cover, nice and snug to protect it when she travels, but I messed up the measurements and made it 2mm too tight. So I had to start again, and thus post it a bit late.  Not exactly ideal, but at least the finished present was nice.

I was really pleased with Bonnie's party this year.  I wanted to keep it fairly low-cost while still being loads of fun and something a little different.  Knowing how much she  loves to dress up and preen, we decided on a "photo shoot."

I ordered some photo props on sticks made from card - glasses, moustaches, bow ties - through eBay for about £4.  We moved the big mirror into the kitchen, propped it on the table as a dressing area, and heaped costume jewellery, hair clips, scarves, hats, shawls and anything else we could think or up for the kids to play with.

Using a double duvet cover hung from a shelving unit as a backdrop and old bedside lamps to improve the lighting, we had our "studio."

 A couple of old frames with the pictures and glass removed and we were set for the party guests.  Of course, we needed a couple of practise models to make sure the lights and backdrop would work ok.    What can I say, I've a face for radio.

The girls had a fantastic time.  I took the pictures with my iPhone, nothing fancy, and kept a tick sheet next to me to ensure I got several photos of each child.  I didn't want to discover as I went to print them out I had 25 of Emily and none of Aaliyah (which nearly happened. Aaliyah is much the quietest of them all).  In fact, the person I got fewest pictures of in the end was Miss B herself.  She was so busy chatting, dancing and helping her friends create 'looks' she nearly forgot to be photographed.

One girl so heavily disguised even her mum didn't immediately recognise her!

I took loads of pictures in which the kids gurned, posed, went all Vogue and gangsta, and nearly fell down laughing.  It was great fun.

Then I put out the food for them to dig into before settling them down to watch Maleficent on DVD in one room while I edited and printed off the photos in the other.  Each girl got her photos as a party bag, along with cake and sweets. I bought 3-packs of those little perspex blocks that hold a crocodile clip for displaying a photo, so each party-goer got her own best shot displayed.  I emailed the others to their mums.

All in all, with the cake, sandwiches, brownies, mini-cupcakes, crisps, hummus, veg sticks, grapes, blackcurrant squash, party bag bits and photo paper, I think the cost of the party came to under £40.  My Very Excellent Mate Kirsty loaned us the DVD and most of the dressing up things were items we had already - especially hats.  We do love hats. One of the most fun and affordable parties I've done in ages. 

Before I took the photo studio down, Luke did a quick Zombie Apocalypse 3-D pose. Try not have nightmares OK? If you feed him pizza he probably won't kill you.

A mighty sort out

Hello webby pals!

A ridiculously complicated set of events led to Miss B choosing a large stack of books from her brother's shelf. They were mostly non-fiction books about animals, science and the environment, and they were slightly too tall and significantly too numerous to fit on her book case.

A sane person would have removed a few titles she'd moved beyond or stacked the books elsewhere. I hope you know me well enough by now to realise I am not that person. I took it as a chance to work with Miss B and stage a sort out of massive proportions. One that took 7 hours and counting.

Every single book came off the shelves. B sorted them into Keep and Give Away. I sifted again, removing the ones laden with memories to go in the keepsake box and dividing the rest into charity shop and those to pass on to others.

Books sifted, we moved on to the clothes. Every item of clothing in the wardrobe, cupboards and drawers joined the pile on the bed. From coats to knickers we looked at every single item. Did it fit? Did she like it? Did she wear it? Being a lucky recipient of many hand-me-downs, Miss B has an extensive wardrobe. It took AGES to sort. We had items to keep, items to bin, clothes I could use for my craft projects (more of that later...) clothes to sell at the Nearly New Sale next week, things to give to friends and many bags of charity stuff.

Then we tackled the soft toys, dolls and fancy dress boxes. I washed all the outgrown costumes ready to take to the Nearly New Sale, which is why my washing line looked rather fabulous today. The black and green witch dress in the middle will be B's Hallowe'en costume this year but the rest can go. B wanted to keep the animal, pirate and the doctor outfits. Old school feminist that I am, I love that the pirate and doctor stayed when she discarded the princess dresses."It's always handy to have some costumes to hand, in case you want to do acting," said my wise 7 year old.

To be honest the room looks worse now than when we started. I think it will take another 3 hours at least to get everything sorted and labelled. However, there is space on the book shelves for new acquisitions, a crate of craft kits sorted and easily accessible and some space in the formerly bulging wardrobe.

It's not the end, but I can see it from here!
J x