Some of you may remember this:
This abomination fell onto our desks on a rainy morning in the office. As parents, we couldn’t bear the thought of those children’s dreams being shattered. More than this, we felt for the mum. She’d paid and promised to make her little girl’s dream come true. She trusted the company and in return her daughter could have lost all trust in her. This is why, we decided to host the perfect Frozen party in Devon, using only the best entertainers and involving many brands to really make the party stand out from the crowd.
Our Birthday Girl
Our editor, Martina Mercer, has three children. She is also the reigning Working Mother of the Year with a trophy and everything. As Martina lives and works from our estate, it made sense for one of her children to be the birthday girl. Even more so, as Percy (short for Persephone) her youngest is a huge Frozen fan and happened to have a birthday coming up within the next month.
Here she is:
Relax a little longerWe'd love your views on these
Getting Started with Frozen Decoration
With our partners The Young Gardener, Decorators Devon and Decorator Dad, we surveyed the whole area. We wanted our improvements to last more than a day. As all of our offices surround the farm, we all chipped in to update the barns and to renovate areas for long lasting fun in the garden. You can see how we took care of the flowers and paint in our post on The Young Gardener.
The area began looking like this.
With the help of Ronseal, Lezucha, Rustoleum, Aldi and Lawnmaster, the area finished up like this:
We used pinks inspired by Anna’s dress and a gorgeous Elsa Blue. Even today, on a blustery day it brings a smile to our face.
Party Delights
Once the evergreen decoration was taken care of, we needed to Frozenfy the farm. We stumbled upon a brilliant website called Party Delights and ordered almost every decoration from here including:
- Pin the Nose on Olaf Game
- Frozen Pinata with blindfold and stick
- Frozen Foil Balloons including a life size Elsa (see our pic)
- Frozen Dress for the Birthday Girl
- Frozen Door Decorations
These were all great quality while the pinata even came with 1lb worth of sweets. Martina swapped the refreshers for Werther’s Originals though.
Our Party on Channel 4
In amongst all the organising we were asked by a production company if we could be filmed preparing for the party, along with the party itself. We spent a week with producers and camera men following our every move and in time, we’ll let you know when you can see this on the TV!
Sunday Woman featured heavily as did Martina, who lead the proceedings and explained the magazine. We also talked about the lovely brands we got to work with such as Aldi, Lawnmaster, Ronseal, Party Delights, The National Trust, Lezucha and more.
Food Glorious Frozen Party Food
Next we needed to arrange the food. Martina knew of an incredible start up who are tipped to be the Moonpig of cakes. These were the obvious choice for the personalised Frozen touch we wanted. As they didn’t have Disney licencing, we stuck to an “icy” theme, while one of the bakers, kindly bought Percy some Frozen dolls to play with. We think you’ll agree they created the best Frozen esque themed cake we’ve ever seen. Snowy, icy, blue and white, this cake became the centerpiece of the whole party but they didn’t stop there!
If you’ve watched American documentaries, you’ve seen the dessert table trend that is currently infiltrating the UK. This is what The Cake Academy created. They set it all up, bringing everything they needed for a jaw dropping display and our guests were treated to a Frozen themed feast fit for an Elsa Queen.
Here’s what we had:
- Cake Pops made with Oreo cookies and cream cheese, covered in blue and white icing – delicious
- Hombre cakes that varied in shade from bright blue to white with butter cream icing and jam
- Icy donuts made with sponge and iced with blue royal icing
- Cupcakes with the no 4 and snowflakes emblazoned across the top, these went into the party bags
- Marshmallow hombre crispy buns
- Shards of white chocolate, smashed into icy stalagmites, sporting pearlescent balls and glitter
It really was a royal feast. Keep your eye out for The Cake Academy as they are set to be very big. If you’d like to use their services, email Martina and she will put you in touch.
Savoury Food
We had a little disaster with the savoury buffet as the AGA at the venue broke down. We served homemade pizza and relied on Sainsburys and Waitrose for nibbles, while John West sent us their new range of spreadables to try. The spreadables were a godsend, in all different flavours from Morrocan to Mexican. We served a huge plate of baps with “Tuna Surprise” sandwiches and the children loved guessing the flavours in them.
Entertainment
The next challenge was to find Frozen entertainment that was miles better than the video that first inspired us. We expanded our search to the whole south of the UK and settled on a company called Fairy Dust Events. They charged a LOT of money for coming to us as we were situated quite a way away but we did think it would be worth it, if they were convincing as Elsa and Anna on the day.
The jury is still out on this one. When they turned up Percy hid. She soon came round and joined in but she was looking quite confused. Elsa didn’t wear a wig so there wasn’t the trademark white hair to immediately identify her, while Anna looked nothing like her. They were bubbly and bouncy though and seemed good with children so we carried on. Despite any reservations, they were absolutely nothing like the bad Elsa impersonator, for that we were extremely grateful.
They were obiously rushing by the end though which upset Percy a little. She just wanted to play but they dashed off, while rushing some of the games such as the Pinata (opening it rather than waiting for the kids to bash it open). We had to step in a few times as they were making decisions that weren’t theirs to make, such as cutting of the cake etc and they really upset Percy at one point when they put her in a Prince Hans of the Seven Isles costume.
If your little girl loves Frozen, you’ll know NO little girl wants to be Prince Hans.
Despite all of this, they were good singers and entertained the kids, as did our lifesize Olaf when he popped out to join in. They did face painting and balloon modelling and made Percy feel speial, but didn’t notice when she disappeared to play on the swings with her ducklings for the last 30 minutes! Which leads us to…
The Petting Zoo
Being situated on a farm, of course we have lots of animals. As it was spring, we decided to open a little petting zoo on the day for the children. We made a rainbow fence and brought together baby chicks, baby rabbits and guinea pigs, baby ducklings and tortoises. Our pigs, Egg and Chips were also in reach. The children loved petting the animals and we think the animals loved it too!
It was a great area for the children that were a little shy, and with Martina’s daughter, Poppy managing it, all of the children really came out of their shell.
Percy and Poppy made decorations for the petting zoo using Disney Frozen Blo Pens. They turned out brilliantly, especially with the stencils. We’ll be buying these again!
Party Bags
Initially, when considering party bags we went entirely with a Frozen theme. Jewelry, figures, facepaint, stickers. That is until we realised that boys wold be attending too. It doesn’t matter how much the press waxes lyrical about sexism, giving a 4 year old boy some fake earrings and a sparkly necklace in a party bag just isn’t on.
Party delights supplied treats for the girls, while we relied on Tesco for yo-yos, bubbles, compasses, football notebooks, toy snakes and whistles for the boys (and girls).
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