The Angry Birds theme birthday party - the preparation

I'm just trying to steal time now to update you about my son's 7th birthday party because I'm afraid if I don't document everything I have done now, it will be expired and the story won't be valid anymore.

So, to continue the story from my last post, I have decided to hold a slightly bigger than a normal birthday party by end of this month, but I still keep it as simple as I can considering I don't have a lot of budget for this party. There won't be any famous magician or a clown, no food carts either. I think it will be the simplest 7th birthday party in the Philippines. I have many discussions with my son to help me cutting down the budget by not inviting all his friends but only those he knows best. But this tight budget actually has a blessing in disguise as I'm forced to become more creative and more resourceful to make my son's dream come true.

My son has chosen to invite about 20 of his school friends, plus another 10 friends around the neighborhood. These 30 friends will come with their parents or their nannies. So I really have to prepare food & souvenirs for at least 70-100 people. Honestly, this is my 1st time holding a party which will have more than 70 people attending. Even my wedding party was attended only by 10 people! :)The food business I leave it to the professional caterer who is more familiar to serve food for more than 70 people. I will do the decorations, the loot bags, the birthday cake, and the finger food for the children.

Since the party theme is Angry Birds, it's easy for me to find many things Angry Birds. One website that I'm stuck quite a long time to get some ideas for this party is http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/angry-birds-birthday-party-theme/This website is so great and has all information and ideas I need.Since my last post, I have completed making 5 green pig piñatas using the 4-layer papier mârché technique. I have this idea of building a life size Angry Birds game to add the fun in the party. So, I collected many old boxes around my house; from my daughter's milk carton boxes, toy boxes, until my stove box. I also asked from my friend to donate whatever used boxes they have. I got many combination of boxes: big, small, long, short.I wrapped each box using a brown paper wrapper to look like a wooden block.

Then I painted my son's 4 bowling pins that usually just sit on the corner of my son's toy room. The pins now have 4 angry bird faces. These will be the beaters for the piñata. But my son has tried to shoot the pin using the slingshot instead...:)

Next project was to design the invitation. Again, my visit to The Party Animal website gave me some ideas for the invitation. At first I wanted to make a 3D iPad invitation. I have completed the design & tried to print it in the printing shop. But then, it used a lot of ink and paper, so 1 invitation costed me nearly P100. If 30 invitation, I had to spend P3K! Too much for my budget. Besides, I would need to spend sometime to fold it one by one, insert the styrofoam for the inside to make the 3D iPad looks more real, another cost for the styrofoam, and I have no time as I still had to fly overseas for 2 weeks. If the guess was only 10, I would go with this 3D iPad.

So, I changed the design. I didn't really think of using the 3D iPhone shape as I think the words written on the invitation would be too small and hard to read. But still I can't completely eliminate it. I just had to try it first. I tried to fit the design for 3D iPad into the 3D iPhone instead. With iPhone shape a lot smaller, I can afford to print 2 pictures in 1 paper. I also tried to print it at home since I finally found a shop which sells a glossy photo paper for only P99 for 10 papers. Still, if it is 3D iPhone, I had to fold it and insert the styrofoam, blah...blah...and I'm running out of time as the invitations needed to go out at least 2 weeks before the D-day. I also need to get the RSVP replies as soon as possible so I can inform the number to the caterer. So, I chose the 2D iPhone invitation instead. But, I made a stand for this iPhone shape invitation so that the invitation can be displayed and people won't forget to attend the party. I got the idea for the stand from this website: Dessine moi un objet - iPhone paper dock by Julien Madérou.

I thought when I was overseas, I could work on the invitations, but I was wrong. I was so busy overseas, I could do nothing for this birthday party preparation. So, when I returned to Philippines, I continued working on the invitations day and night sacrificing my sleeping time and neglecting my children a bit. The result? My daughter fell sick! D'oh! She had high fever just when I really needed to deliver the invitations to the school. 

I'm doing all these alone, by the way. My helper helped me in cleaning the house and doing other thing in the house. I still have to cook and take care the children while doing the things for the party. My husband? He only wants to be the guest in the party. Nevermind...I'm used to do one-man show anyway...:)

So, I had no choice. I had to stop doing things for the party and take care my children first. It's God's way of reminding me what should be my priority, isnt' it? Thank God my daughter recovered in 1 day. I geared up to deliver the invitations and texted the people about this party. 

Next, the loot bag, the party peripherals, and the decorations. I had to do major shopping. And, since my budget is limited, the only place I can think of is Divisoria in Manila.

I have never gone to that place before and I heard not many people can 'survive' shopping in that place. Many of my friends fell sick after coming back from shopping at Divisoria.

But I had no choice. I had to go there to keep my budget low. No fancy shopping at high class malls! 

Praise the Lord one of my good friends was nice enough to drive me to Divisoria. She is such an expert in shopping she really helped me a lot buying and choosing things in Divisoria. That place, by the way, was not as scary as what I thought. In fact, it was really a place to do shopping as Divisoria has everything. Literally, everything! And the price is wow! Honestly, you will drool and can't stop shopping. Suddenly you'll need everything...:) I shopped and shopped and shopped from 7:30AM till lunch time! I came home looking like pretty woman with bags full of things, all Angry Birds!! The best part was I still had some money in my wallet and I survived! :) In fact, I think I'm addicted to shop in Divisoria. Ha!..:D

Then, my helper helped me to put things one by one in the loot bags while I did the design for the backdrop decorations. I also bought an Angry Bird bedsheet set. I plan to use the bedsheet as part of decorations. Lucky for me, my neighbor gave my son a birthday gift: an Angry Bird towel. So, this towel will go to the wall as a decoration as well...:) 

I also made special buckets to serve the finger food. I wrapped each bucket with an aluminum foil to cover the inside and wrapped the outside with colorful Japanese paper to pretend that each bucket is a bird-nest. It's very beautiful and cute too. I'm also surprised with how beautiful it turned out. I put a sticker of angry bird in front of the bucket.

So, the loot bags, party peripherals, and decorations are sorted out, except the balloons. I need to blow the balloons only a day before.

So, next to plan is the games and the birthday cake.

I have listed many games we plan to play including some quizzes on Angry Birds and the birthday boy. Since I made too many piñata pig head, I'm going to use 1 to play "Pass the pig head". 10 children will play this game. They will sit around and pass the pig head around while the music on. Since the pig is the most hated character in the Angry Birds game, who ever gets the pig head when the music stop, he/she will have to get out of the loop without any prizes. The last one gets the pig head will win the prize.

Another game is "Save the egg birds". In this game, the children will be divided into 3 groups consist of 5 children. Then the 1st in line has to bite a spoon with an egg on the spoon, then carries the egg to the end of line, then turn around and walk back to the group, then pass the egg to the next player in line without touching & dropping the egg. The group that completes the line first will be the winner. 

Then, the biggest game will be the life-size Angry Bird game. In this game, all big children must line up to take turn to beat or to shoot the blocks so that the pig head piñatas will fall down and then the children can take the candies. My son has tried this game before and he really had fun and sweaty all over...:D He likes it so much but it was very tiring. My son said the real Angry Birds game is more tiring than the one on my iPhone because when playing on my iPhone he only uses his 1 finger. But playing the life-size Angry Birds need him to move all of his body parts, running around to rebuild the blocks. Good exercise for him!...:D I hope other kids in the birthday party will have fun too playing this real Angry Birds game.

There will be a 7-thing ceremony as well. I plan to ask 21 of his friends to give him 7 candies to symbolize that my son will always have a sweet life, 7 books to symbolize that my son will always have a good career, 7 oranges to symbolize gold (in Chinese - as my son is half chinese) so that my son will be wealthy in the future. This 7-thing ceremony is the Philippines tradition for 7th birthday.


As for the birthday cake, I plan to make the giant birthday jelly. I'm still designing it and I still need to practice on creating the angry birds characters for the jelly decorations.

When I have some free time (which is very hard to get), I try to complete the video of my son growing up from he was born until he is 7 years old. It will allow him to walk back down the memory lane and remind him how exciting his life is and will be.

So far, these are the things I have completed and still preparing. With God's help, I really hope I can fulfill my son's dream to have a great birthday party even with a limited budget. Please pray so that this party will be a successful one. I will update this blog again most likely after the party.


I'm working on one surprise for the children. Hopefully they'll like it...:)


UPDATE: 
The dress code for the party is Angry Birds T-Shirt. So, every one in the party needs to wear Angry Birds T-shirt. I bought an original DVD of RIO - The Movie to be shown on the LCD projector during dinner so that the children will sit down nicely and enjoy the meal. I had to eliminate the 7 things ceremony because of time constraint. The party has to finish in 3 hours.