Rockin' Rocket Party

Zak's 4th Birthday.

So asking a three year old what party he wants for his birthday isn't always the best idea. Garanteed they will pick something that is not easily bought for. Now i'm not one to shy away from craft projects but when I have no time the last thing I want is to do just that.

So what does Zak want for his birthday party. A Rocket Party! The first thing I do is to get on the computer and start searching rocket parties other mums have done and thankfully blogged about. There are some great resources out there.

Firstly, I had to decide on the whole theme and that starts with the invite to the party. After alot of trawling through website, I took bits from lots of different websites and came up with a red and white rocket (red is Zak's favourite colour).

I was really pleased with the way they turned out. I bought black envelopes and made sticky lables which followed on the theme of the rocket.

Next I had to think about the party favours and found these Rockin' Rocket Favors and they were perfect. I used red foam instead of card for the fins and the tops. Lastly, I threaded some butchers string through the tops to make it easier for the kids to carry their party favours.

I looked for different decorations to make for the party and came across this Fourth of July Confetti Popper Rockets.  So there I was, collecting all the empty toilet rolls I could get my hands on. They were surprisingly easy to make and I loved the final outcome. Although, I do still have bits of confetti in all four corners of my garden.

I wanted to sting them up in a line so that the children could each grab a pull but never got a chance to even use them let alone sting them up. We ended up doing it after everyone had left but Zak and his cousins loved it. I did transform Zak's play house into a rocket too but unfortunately didn't get a before and after photo. The main reason was to get each childs photo through the window but again that didn't happen either.

One of the classic games for any kids party is "Pin the tail on the donkey". The beauty of the game is that it can be adapted to any party theme you can think of. After thinking long and hard I decided on "Land the rocket on the moon". I painted a canvas and printed out the same rockets on sticky labels as per the invites for the children to stick to the canvas.

Another classic is pass the parcel. I remember the day when all you got in between the paper was a forfit and the only person to win anything was the last one standing. These days you have to put sweets in each layer and to make sure that each child gets one just to be fair. As I didn't know exactly how many children were going to be playing I decided on making a rocket for the kids to pass around. It did have the capabilities of popping open at the bottom to fill with your chosen sweets at the last minute, but I didn't have to do that as my sister was kind enough to make little packages for each child.

I did make a lot more stuff but didn't get a chance to use it, not that the kids noticed.
Zak described to me in detail the kind of rocket cake he wanted, the main request being the size. Apparently he wanted a cake so big he needed a chair to get to it. As I had decided on making smaller cakes and desserts for the kids to eat I made the bottom half of the cake out of cake dummies and just covered it in icing .

I loved the idea of making the Pusk pops into rockets aswell. I know it was a little over the top but I love  how simple it was to do and how perfectly is fit in with the theme.
All the party photography is the work of my  very talented sister Mona of Mona Naem Photography, check out her website for some amazing pictures.

Zak had a great day and is already telling me next year he wants a Spiderman party, and so the research begins.