Oooohhh! Yummy clown cupcakes!

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/clown-cupcakes

Perfect for a clown themed party!

I found the Martha Stewart website the other day and see she has some fantasic ideas for children’s party food - you can find party food ideas here: http://www.marthastewart.com/more-kids-parties

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There was a great article on the BBC News website the other day about the politics of children’s birthday parties - follow this link to read it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7481037.stm

It explores the classroom politics of who to invite to the party!

Happy reading!

Looking for themed party tableware for your next party?

Due to a warehouse relocation at Little Cherry, we are having a massive clear-out of all our themed tableware, we have a limited selection of products available so pick yours up now at crazy low prices! Visit www.littlecherry.co.uk or call Lucy on 01753 857003!

Theme partyware available include the following:

Dora the Explorer
Bob the Builder
Cars
Barbie
Charlie and Lola
Spiderman
Postman Pat
Jungle
Pirates
Football
Winnie the Pooh
Thomas the Tank Engine
Bratz
Disney Princess

Snap up your childrens party supplies now before they all run out!

Call Lucy on 01753 857003

Families magazine are running a competition this month to win a set of 10 ethically sourced natural cotton party bags from my eco-friendly party bag range at Little Cherry!

For all you mum’s who are trying to make a difference and reject the nasty plastic party bags containing plastic easily broken toys (which invaribly end up shoved down the back seat of the car!), take a look at the article on eco-friendly parties on page 9 on the May/June issue of Thames Valley West Families magazine.

Gazette Column 23rd April

It fills me with dread when Alexander comes home from a party with yet another small plastic party bag full of coloured tat and a gazillion E numbers that invariably gets lost in the car before we even get into the house. A small plastic car that falls apart the minute he races it in our hallway. A little ball on a length of elastic with a ring through the top that breaks on the first bounce. Those plasticky games where you have to line the silver balls up in the holes that invariably Alex manages to dislodge the thin cardboard backing before he even manages to line anything up. Sound familiar?

Well I’ve found a wonderful eco alternative to all that plastic ‘tat’. www.littlecherry.co.uk are based in Windsor and offer the most brilliant party bags I’ve seen in a long time. The party bag itself is a handy cotton drawstring bag made out of fun fabric that you will definitely use again, whether it’s storing hair clips in for girls or Match Attax cards in, in Alex’s case!

Each bag is filled with lovely gifts that are wooden (sustainable) or recycled: cute wooden pencils with fun toppers, sweet colourful wooden cars and the girls bag with a wooden necklace, hair slides and fairy pencil is a real hit. The recycled notepad with the message on the front “Thank you for coming to my party!” is a lovely idea. A lot of thought has gone into Little Cherry Eco Friendly Children’s Parties (01753 857003) – as well as making brilliant party bags that start from just £3 you can be sure that the items are friendly to the planet, traded fairly and biodegradeable.

I like to support small businesses such as Little Cherry, run by mums who see a gap in the market and go for it. ‘Mumtrepeneurs’ are on the increase and it’s great to see Hillingdon Council and Brunel University encouraging them with another one of their great Enterprising Women free support courses running again. There’s a taster session on 23rd April and the six week intensive programme (designed to fit in with school hours, one day a week) commences on 6th May. Call Pauline on 01895 267057 or email pauline.seston@brunel.ac.uk to register or find out more.

Party Bag Tips

Use a supplier such as www.littlecherry.co.uk to do the hard work for you! But if you want to do it yourself then check out the following tips.
Rather than a party bag, think about giving a ‘going-home’ gift. Buying one useful item can often work out cheaper in the long run than scouring the shops for lots of little things.
Think about the season, if it’s Easter give an Easter Egg instead of a party bag, for summer parties a bucket and spade or a football or a kids mug can work at any time of year.
Work out in advance how many children will be coming to the party and keep your eyes peeled in the sales for a bargain year-round. Just remember to put them somewhere you will find them! The pound shop in The Mall Pavilions, Uxbridge is a good place to look too.
Mums will thank you if you buck the trend and don’t include sweets in a party bag! The chances are their off-spring will have consumed enough sweet things at the party and if your house is anything like mine, trying to get them to save the sweets for another day often ends in a battle of wills.
 

Cathy Ranson |Sunshine Magazine

With only two weeks left for preparations my excitement is growing rapidly about London Aware, which is to be held at the Barbican on 10th and 11th May 2008. You may already know this, but Little Cherryhave partnered with UK Aware to run the interactive children’s area on Sunday 11th May - and I can’t wait!

 We started by getting together to bash some ideas out about what activities the kids could enjoy, but would also hold an important lesson about caring for or being mindful of the environment and what materials we could use from the eco-friendly party supplies I stock. With three teachers in my family, this part was great fun! We came up with the following fun activities:

Sunflower Seed Potting - we will be making pots from newspaper, filling them with peat and planting a seed, which the children can take away with them.

Bag making - we thought we could make bags from recycled newspaper, and scraps of natural hessian (sacking). I have been around all the local charity shops and bought piles of wonderful, colourful wool ready for the children to sew the bags together.

Wishing Tree - we are making a tree from natural materials and asking the children to make a wish and attach it to the tree.

Recycled Playhouse - Eco-Products have kindly donated a playhouse made from recycled card. We thought it might be fun for the children to collect scrap materials and add solar panels and a wind turbine to the house! We have sustainable wooden crayons,  biodegradable ribbons and a load of other ‘junk’ to play with!

Boat Race - We have comissioned someone to make us some wooden boats from branches collected in Liss forest, we thought that we could attach a compostable sail to our reclaimed wooden boats and have races!

Wormery - Worm City have kindly donated a fantastic executive wormery to the event - the kids will be able to have a great dig around with the worms and learn some facts about composting.

We also have an eco-quiz, where the children can work out their carbon footprint, and I will of course have lots of party bags and fun eco-friendly party bag toys on sale, I am taking along some fridge magnets made from recycled plastic cups for the children and am hoping the day will be a blast!!

I love getting involved and supporting local business and events and I think this is a great way of getting people together with a community spirit, and teaching our children to be responsible about the choices they make. After all, in my opinion, if children are brought up in an eco-friendly way, they are naturally more likely to make eco-friendly choices as they grow up and then become more consious of their choices as adults.

At a grass roots level, we as grown ups should take the responsibility to teach children these valuable lessons and in turn start to look after their future. I know that when we were growing up we showered in buckets and used the water to flush the loo or on the garden, we made lots of our own clothes and played games in the garden - we got hours of enjoyment looking for pine cones!

I hope to see you at London Awareon 10th and 11th May at the Barbican. x

I found this great website today, which is full of fun recipies for children’s parties from penguin tuna sandwiches to dogs in blankets!

http://www.creativegirlsclub.com/edu/pt7foodfun.html

With so many great ideas your party food is bound to be amazing!

I have decided to have a big spring clear out at Little Cherry and put all our themed party supplies on SALE!

You will find all our themed party supplies are offered at massively reduced prices, so get shopping and buy them for your themed birthday party at these low prices while you can!

Choose your birthday party theme from our range of popular party themes which include Barnyard 1st Birthday party supplies, Winnie the Pooh party supplies, Barbie party supplies, Charlie and Lola party supplies, Disney Princess party supplies, Dora the Explorer party supplies, Fifi and the Flowertots party supplies, Barbie Fairytopia party supplies, Bratz party supplies, Batman party supplies, Bob the Builder party supplies, Cars party supplies, Football party supplies, Thomas the Tank Engine party supplies, Postman Pat party supplies, Spiderman 3 party supplies, Pirates party supplies, Jungle party supplies and Doctor Who party supplies.

Compliment them with our eco-friendly accessories such as biodegradable latex balloons and recyclable crepe paper streamers for a bright and fun themed birthday party!

Ps. don’t forget your loot bags! We offer some lovely eco-friendly party bags which are available as pre-filled party bags or as separate party bag fillers and hand made party bags or paper party bags so you can choose to make your own party bag.