Question.... how quickly can you put together a party?

The answer.... in 24 hours or less! And what an exciting, hectic, busy and fun 24 hours!

Late yesterday we received a call from a reporter at the Leader newspaper, asking us to take part in an article on cost effective ways to hold a children's birthday party. 

For those of you not in Metro Melbourne, the Leader is a localised paper that covers all of metro Melbourne, broken down into 33 newspapers and reaches approx. 1.8 million readers....according to their website. 

Sounds good right...? The only catch? They asked us to put together a party for the photo shoot, prep our 3 kids and be interviewed for the article, all by the end of today! With me being down the beach, it was a crazy pack up for the family and return to the CBD late last night to help Alex pull it all together.

The brief was to put together something that anyone could do, keep it fun, keep it affordable, keep it simple. 

So, with that in mind, food was kept to classics such as popcorn, honey joys, jelly and cupcakes. Alex also made some fabulous cookie pops (which she rolled in coloured coconut, simple but so effective!). The cake is a simple chocolate cake iced in a yellow butter cream icing and covered in sprinkles, with a finishing touch of cake bunting. 

In terms of colour, we decided bright, bold colours would work best. The theme works for girls and boys, young and old - so seemed universal enough for all audiences. We quickly whipped up some printables to add to the drink bottles, food labels (which are held in place with play dough), cup cake toppers (which are actually in the honey joys and jellies), cake bunting and the 'thank you' lolly jars. The coloured lanterns hanging from the stairs were added at the last minute, literally as the photographer was ringing the door bell.

I managed to snap off some shots of the set up after the photographer had finished and before the kids had jumped in to demolish the treats! Enjoy...

It was a great day - the kids loved posing for the photographer and I don't think I said anything too silly in the interview (although time will tell). We are really proud of how quickly we could turn this around and the results we came up with under pressure. Big thanks to our husbands and beautiful children for their help and support.

For all of you Melburnians, the article should be in all Leaders newspapers from Monday next week (it's in the Super Saver section)... look out for us!