Friday the 13th - the tricky party edition

Greetings all,

Our children love all things spooky, so when our highschooler realised out it would be Friday 13th in the middle of our school holidays, she asked for a party.  It was so much fun, sweet girls, dodgy weather (to add to the gloom) & fantastic costumes!!

There's enough pressure on teens to wear the right clothes, experiment with make up & act cool, so a themed dress up solves many a 'i have nothing to wear' meltdown.  The girls zombied up in everything from Black Swan to Dead Princess ensembles.   

I do tonnes of preparation so the actual party runs smoothly & i can chat to any parents who hang around (none did.)  The trick is to not make it look like you tried too hard ("try hard") & let things flow.  My daughter has been to many high school parties where girls refuse to play games ("games suck") & soon get out of control as girls branch off into groups in other rooms ("totes drama".)  Being the holidays, lots of girls were away, so we had a neat group of 10, very managable.

Party preparation included dressing my 4 children as a Zombie Princess, Porcelain Ballerina Doll, Voodoo Doll & an Axe Murderer (so proud) along with labelling mineral waters as Ghost Wee, Pus, Slime & Venom.  A neat bunch of $5 Aldi roses hid the mixer & juicer on the counter + i lit all the candles on the table in advance.  The chickens watched on with much excitement through the windows.  We made the treadmill into a ghost too, easier than moving it!! 

The night before i blew up & hung black balloons from the ceiling (tied 30cm apart, overlapping rows, stuck with tiny 3M hooks) & the $3 paper lanterns over down lights + $1 cob webs & streamers.  I spent days making sausage rolls (+ rissoles for dinner) & had a sausage sizzle ready to go, but the girls were already full on pizza scrolls.  

For the party games we went old school - trying to pick up jaffas with chop sticks & the chocolate game (with $3 giant fluffy dice to roll "double 6s" for your turn to cut up a frozen block of chocolate with cutlery.)  Then they gobbled up chocolate dipped strawberries & hit the dance floor complete with smoke machine ($40 from Aldi last year.) 

 So the party ran pretty evenly, they even sat around & opened gifts, played a round of Spotlight in the back garden & chowed down on a huge chocolate mud cake ($22 from Costco, way cheaper than purchasing the ingredients + i doubt our Army issue oven could have baked it successfully.)  The party ran 4-7p.m. which had them arriving in daylight & leaving in the dark, unfortunately our $5 flaming torches didn't get lit due to rain/ wind/ cheap wicks - just imagine how awesome they would have looked though.  

 Tonight our eldest daughter is off to her 3rd party in 5 days, she still looks like a Zombie Princess (it's another sleepover too) . . . i'm totally loving her high school life, tonnes of lovely friends & great parties, i'm just realising how much effort & driving my own mother did for me when i had such a carefree social life!! 

Special mention to our disguised treadmill who ended up being like a theme-park-photo-opportunity-character.  Home parties, on a budget, you can do it too!!  Love Posie

PS win a copy of Birth Stories in this giveaway, giving birth seems like the easy part, huh??

PPS if you're visiting me today from Retro Mummy, welcome!!