Athena's 6 : Pre-preparation

Theme : Minnie Mouse

I thought it was weird of her to choose Minnie Mouse coz' it's for toddlers. But oh well.. she's making my life slightly easier where I can get some favors locally, otherwise I'[ll start blaming her.

Slight moderation : She wanted a Minnie Mouse which I thought it'll be difficult to get solely Minnie Mouse stuffs + I did a combine shipping for both girls' parties (Which means, I had some of Athena's birthday stuffs since August) so eventually I thought a Mickey Clubhouse will suit fine and I'll do a Minnie Mouse cake for her.

Venue : After a few emailing to various places namely RIM, GGB, GK, I thought I'd try Frisk N Romp since they mentioned about Disney theme in the month of November. I thought how perfect it would be since Minnie Mouse is under Disney. I went down to book the place in October, then it was a different theme and needed to check it out again in November.
In November, I brought Aricia for a playtime once and I was pleased with what I saw. Great! Everything with that Mouse - perfect!

Birthday card was sent out in late October. Just as I sent out mine, I received another MCH invitation card from a friend for her son's 1st BD.
I didn't wait for their cards, instead chose to design her card again - personalized.
Had it printed out in a photo shop and then paste on hard paper and sent it out.

Feels really weird - I mean the envelope. It's very light!! I don't have anything else to put in the envelope coz' no need to put itinery and no need to put other rubbish inside. Hmm.... hope FnR don't disappoint me.

Favors :
Favors for the children were packed 2 weeks before. And becoz' she decided at last minute she wanted to invite her YJC friends & no time to do online shopping, I had to differentiate the toddlers' bags and the rests. So I went to shop for more things for the lil' 6 toddlers.
By then as I kept buying and buying things , I realise my goodie bag is not big enough. I needed a bigger bag. @ Jachelle's birthday, Athena was given a very cute polka dot bag - which I tried to find but only left with 3 in the whole of Singapore. Argh! Since I was at PS, I thought I should just get bags in Spotlight to DIY afterall all I needed was red and white to make Minnie's dress pattern. Easy peesy! Bought white bags and red sticker dots... and then when I got home, something just prompted me to look at Minnie's picture once again. Argh!!! Her dress is red with white polka dot. I'm so blur to think it's white with red dots. Thank goodness, I didn't stick the dots on all 22 bags - it'll look more like chicken pox!!! So I printed the pictures of Minnie - for girls and Mickey - for boys, used my Mickey puncher to punch out some papers and stick on the 4 corners.

I needed to identify the bags since they're going to be different. I wanted to do a luggage tag, so that they can use it on their schoolbag (that is if they want to use it), but I couldn't find the string. (Not enough time for online purchase) What I did finally was clip-on type.
Had to use Photoshop to do the tag.

Packed the bags about 2 weeks before her party and my home was really messy (it still is - I haven't had the time to clear the 2 childrens' favor bags)

So messy! It was an eyesore for me but I didn't have any choice

What went into the bags :
Older Children
1) MCH Conehat - from Kiddy Palace
2) MCH Blowout - from Kiddy Palace
3) Sticker - online from US
4) Memo Pad - from ValueShop
5) Mechanical pencil - from ValueShop
6) Toy - from ToysRUs
7) Tattoo - online from US
8) Biscuits x3 - from Giant
9) Popcaps (which took me a long long time to try to recall where I had seen it)- from a shop in HM. And the boss was kind enough to let me go through all his boxes to dig out Mickey & Friends
10) Chocolate biscuits (like the Meiji Panda biscuits) - from Meidi-ya
11) Tissue - from the provision shop (hee!)
12) Personalized mint - done by me
* @ last minute put in raisins as well*

Toddlers
1) MCH Conehat - from Kiddy Palace
2) MCH Blowout - from Kiddy Palace
3) Sticker - online from HK, suppose to be for the Pinata but FnR are doing everything for me so I packed them up for the children. Moreover, it was too late for me to order the same sticker for the older children
4) Mechanical pencil - from ValueShop
5) Toy - from ToysRUs
6) Water bottle - from ValueShop
7) Biscuits x3 - from Giant
8) Popcaps (which took me a long long time to try to recall where I had seen it)- from a shop in HM. And the boss was kind enough to let me go through all his boxes to dig out Mickey & Friends
9) Chocolate biscuits (like the Meiji Panda biscuits) - from Meidi-ya (couldn't find the small packs anymore so the younger children are really lucky to get a $2+ biscuits from me)
10) Puzzle Twister - online from US. Suppose to give to all children but with the increase no. = not enough, but I'm still stuck with some
11) Personalized Hershey's - done by me
12) Toothbrush - from ValueShop
13) Stamper - from MiniToons
14) Hairclip - from temporary stall in RM (didn't give anything extra to the boys)
* @ last minute put in raisins as well*
**NB: For those who are interested to know, you are able to find Mickey head gummies in Cocoa Tree - very expensive $4.50 for one big pack. I didn't buy coz' to give one child one pack is too much, if I pack them separately - don't look nice + hygiene reasons. Also, you can find Meiji chocolate (the one that I put on her home-baked cake) from Giant and a few places. That costs $2.50.

Overloaded huh? But I was lucky that I didn't get that much favors online since I knew that Mouse is always hanging around Singapore somewhere; I only needed to search the whole island.

Favors for the adults :
I did a mass production together with Aricia's birthday preparation. Everything was packed nicely (in the same coloured organza bags - pinkish tones) and kept aside until the day comes.


Other knick knacks :
Usually what I'll be busy up to the neck would be all the nitty gritty details, games + catering. But this time round, I decided to try to do it outside so my work is so much easier. Moreover, KZ was on 1 mth home leave which will definitely leave me no time to prepare anything.
I didn't have to do the video montage coz' I don't think they have any projector or whatever to screen it. And oh please.......we'll only be that room for less than an hour or maybe more. Don't think anyone would be interested in it.
Poster?
I think my designer is too busy to help me with this. And I was trying to prepare for the home party, I thought I'll have no time to go down to send for printing etc.. And.... no more wall space in their room now!!
Decorations??
I did prepare some decorations at the same time when I prepared Aricia's BD party. So was lazy to do simple photo collage - even for the party in FnR. Tired!!

Food
There's a surcharge of $80 if you bring outside food in. And I was thinking of doing jellies in Mickey Mouse head, and cut some noris (seaweeds) in the puncher I have - & pray hard nobody has diarrhoea after that coz' I used it to punch the papers first.
I had to consider if I wanted to do outside catering. I'd spend over $150 for sure + $80. Worked out the costs & more thinking-skills and decided that it's better to stick to what they offer. Makes my life easier, so I don't have to worry if the food comes or not.

Birthday cake
I learnt my lesson! After I realise I didn't have any figurines to do a 3D cake for Aricia, I quickly made order online for che-che (just to standby) some figurines.
I tried emailing one of those well-known online baking place to see if they can customise a cake for me. Proud! No reply. I emailed again, no reply. Some people emailed and no reply again. I wonder how these people can do business!! And mind you, I was a little kan-cheong. Bengawan Solo serves nice cakes but their designs are very simple. I want those 3D over-the-top kind of cake. So I went back to Pine Garden. They can't do the Mickey Clubhouse for me, says infringing copyright blah blah. No choice, had to make do with the normal 2-tier cake and pray hard they do a good job for me.
Since I ordered 2-tier, I was able to choose 2 flavours. I ordered the top smaller cake - Triple Chocolate Layer and the bottom bigger cake - Lychee Martini. Ooh............can't wait to eat.

Looking forward to tomorrow's party. Let's hope it's worth the $$