Having organised many children’s (and grown-ups!) parties, we decided to let you know the five most simple steps you can take, that we have learnt along the way to make sure your party is a successful one, and here they are! 

1. Get your child involved with organising the party

Not only will it be a great lesson in making ethical product choices, it will help your child to understand the importance of choosing products carefully and making sure they know why they are choosing the products they are.

For example, every party product we sell has a great story, if you can incorporate that into your selections it can be a really fun exercise, which means something. We have sugarcane plates, natural starch cups, and corn starch straws, not to mention a whole range of tableware made from natural palm leaf and all of these are sure to get your child really excited about their ethical party supplies!

This extends to choices for your party bags too; choosing a recycled paper party bags and popping in a small selection of ethical wooden toys such as a bracelet and hair slides for girls and a spinning top and train for boys is a great way to teach children about decision making, organisation and the value of wooden toys.

2. Have more games and activities then you think you will need

We have found that by having a few more children’s party games up your sleeve it really helps on the day! You will find that some activities take less time than you thought they would and some will just not work as well as you thought… having a few other options on your list will help you to save the day if you sense that a party game isn’t going as well as expected.

3. Have more prizes than you need

Sometimes, as we all know, children can get upset at the prospect of not winning a game. Although it is a good lesson in life, it’s actually a good idea to have a few consolation prizes. Make them token gifts so everyone feels special.

4. Don’t display your party bags in reach of the children

We have found that storing your party bags in a separate room until near the end of the party keeps the children’s attention on the party fun rather than the party bag. Sometimes this is a shame, especially if you want to show your party bags off, a good idea would be to use sticker closures on paper bags and tie up cotton bags in a good bow so the kids do just shove their hands in!

5. Have a plan, but don’t be afraid to change it

Having a plan will keep the activities and party on track, but be prepared to compromise depending on how the party goes. If a child gets a bit tired from the games and excitement and would rather sit out a play with toys, that’s fine, move on to the next activity and chances are, they will join back in again soon!

We update our tips and advice with your help, so please do get in touch with us if you have a great idea and would like to see it published.

We offer a prize for the best tip so you never know, your tip might help you win the party bags for your next party!

Contact us on littleidea@littlecherry.co.uk or give us a call on 01784 470570, and good luck with your party!

London Mum’s Blog has recently given us a lovely review, which you can read here.

Here is what she thought…

How cool is this?! Eco party bags and supplies

Are you fed up with party bags that are filled with plastic toys that end up in the bin? Tired of feeling guilty about the amount of waste from your last party?

Lucy from Little Cherry was in touch the other day and really opened my eyes regarding party bags and products. She sent me a nice box of samples and my girls had a ball playing with everything. And I was surprised (and happy) to learn that most of the items could go right into the compost bin after use.

My greatest discovery was the biodegradable balloons. A party isn’t really a party without them. These balloons are made of natural latex, which is tapped from rubber sustainably. They have been FSC certified, are traded fairly and packaged in a compostable bag with a recycled paper label. They come in seven colours and you get 10 for £1.99. I got pink ones for my daughter’s party. They were easy to blow up and lasted a few days. Now they are with the worms.

My second coolest discovery was the compostable cups, which are made of bio plastic which can be described as a greenhouse neutral polymer which means they have a low carbon emission footprint. They are available in pint (.18) and half pint (.15) sizes. They are durable (and reusable) and look great — I would use them for adults as well. The best part is when you are done with them, they can be composted.

The party bags are excellent. They are all made of cotton and contain a selection of eco-friendly toys made from sustainable wood and painted in non-toxic paints by fully vetted manufactures who pay fair wages and ensure good working practises. They come in three categories per child: less than £4; £4 to £7, and more. The £3 and £4 bags have some cute stuff like clips, bracelets, spinning tops and door hangers.

Also cool: the palm leaf bowls, which are made from naturally fallen leafs, which are then soaked in spring water before being stamped into shape. They are made in a rural community in India where the producers are supported and earn a fair wage. There is a large range that includes serving plates, bowls, dip bowls, and others.

This stuff doesn’t come from Tesco, and will eat into your wallet. But why not cut back in other areas and help save the Earth. That’s the best birthday present you could give your children.

This post was written by Susanna, a London Mums Blog founding contributor. You can read more at her blog, A Modern Mother.

I am really pleased to see such a wonderful article about Little Cherry in this months Berkshire Life magazine! Buy it and see page 109 - Entitled Little Cherry proving fruitful in the business inspiration section!

Hints and tips for a GREEN HALLOWEEN!

Halloween parties are always a great treat for little monsters. And with a little planning, you can make sure they are a treat for our planet too! Here are some tips to get you started thinking about a clean, green Halloween:

- Use organic, locally grown pumpkins and apples for carving jack-o-lanterns and for apple bobbing. The pumpkin seeds removed whilst carving can be roasted and make a delicious and highly nutritious snack for party guests.

- When the party is over, the fruits and vegetables can be used for cooking pies, soups and other dishes.

- The fruit and vegetable scraps are then suitable for compost for your garden. You could even use them to nourish your vegetable garden, helping to grow what will become next years Halloween pumpkins!

Composting reduces the amount of waste you send to landfill.

- Instead of buying a disposable Halloween costume your children will only wear once, why not create a costume from clothes you no longer wear or cheap charity shop clothing? Kids enjoy helping to design and make their very own outfit.

- After the party, you can store the costume for re-use another year, pass them on to or swap them with friends, or donate the clothing they were made from to charity.

- If your children are trick-or-treating, be sure they carry a reusable bag rather than a plastic one. Plastic bags end up as litter, kill thousands of marine animals every year, break down into particles that pollute soil and water, and also require large amounts of fossil fuels during production. Kids will enjoy helping to decorate old pillowcases or cloth or canvas shopping bags to use instead. Try reusable cotton bags from Little Cherry, whch have been handmade in the UK! Halloween themed shapes such as ghosts and pumpkins can be cut from old fabric and sewn on; and the bag can be reused again next year.

- If you are giving treats to trick-or-treating children, ensure they are an environmentally friendly option. Give organic chocolate and sweets with little or no packaging, or give more useful, longer life treats such as pencils and toys. Little Cherry has a huge range of eco-friendly toys and treats to choose from!

A fun new way to say thank you with flowers is the latest product from eco-friendly party specialist, littlecherry.co.uk

The unique seeded ‘thank you’ cards are designed to encourage green-fingered children to venture out into the garden to grow their own flowers.

The decorative thank you tags are made from recycled, biodegradable cotton paper embedded with British wildflower seeds. They are printed with soy based inks and tied with biodegradable ribbon.

Perfect for children’s parties to say thank you to the guests, when planted the cotton paper biodegrades and acts as a mulch to help the seeds grow.

“We all know how much enjoyment children get from planting seeds, watering them and watching them grow,” said Lucy Brindley of Little Cherry.

“So we decided to try and combine this love of nature with a small card tag to thank guests for coming which, when planted, turns into beautiful wild flowers.”

“It’s a great way to encourage young children to develop an interest in nature and growing things. And, as we all know, nothing says thank you like flowers!”

Ends

Contact: Lucy Brindley

Email: lucy@littlecherry.co.uk

Phone: 01784 470570

Website: www.littlecherry.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

The seed thank you cards are just one of the unique eco-friendly products available at the Little Cherry website, which include beeswax birthday candles, recycled gift wrap, biodegradable latex balloons, palm leaf plates and bamboo cutlery.

Little Cherry are specialists in eco-friendly and ethical party planning and offer great advice for children’s parties, recipes, simple ordering and express delivery for busy mums.

Created and run by Lucy Brindley, Little Cherry provides a proactive and friendly service and has glowing testimonials from past customers!

For samples, images or for more information on eco-friendly parties please contact Lucy Brindley on 01784 470570 or lucy@littlecherry.co.uk

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 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.

I often have lots of requests from my lovely customers for more ideas for eco-friendly birthday parties and ethical celebrations, which makes me think there are lots of other eco-friendly people (green beans!) out there with some great ideas - so I have created this blog called Little Green Bean, and would like to invite you all to contribute with your last party experiance, your handy time-saving tips, and any party recipes that went down a storm!

Perhaps you have the best birthday cake idea on the block or a great idea for a party activity to keep the kids entertained? Maybe your sausage rolls are legendary or your treasure hunt had the best prizes? Don’t keep it to yourself, lets all get together and help each other put on the best birthday party ever!

Please email me with your ideas at lucy@littlecherry.co.uk or submit your ideas through this blog, and of course please visit us often for eco-friendly party ideas!