Naomi’s 4th: A (Kind-Of) Frozen Craft Party

I’ve done shockingly bad job documenting my kids’ birthdays in recent years, and it’s kind of sad because we enjoyed them very much!

Attending little Buddy’s 1st birthday the previous weekend has inspired me to finish this post because it was held at EatPlayLove Cafe where we we celebrated Mei’s birthday in March. We had a… wait for it… yes, FROZEN party for her, just like every other preschool girl on this planet. It certainly wasn’t my choice but if there’s one thing my daughter is, it is persistent. 

The back story: She turned three last year shortly after the Frozen movie was released in cinemas. She loved the movie but since it was new and she was only just turning three after all, I was able to steer clear of Frozen when planning her birthday party. I opted for Mr Men and Little Miss as the children were very taken with the books at that time. We had a simple, small party which I will write about at some point!

But when she turned four in March, there was no escaping Frozen. She asked me throughout the whole of last year if she could have a Frozen party. Each time I asked her to please choose something else. She didn’t. Finally, finally, with a few months to go till her birthday, she said she’d have a Big Hero 6 party. “Yes!” I thought. Then she started assigning us characters. Papa would be Baymax, and Mummy Honey Lemon, and Gor-gor Hiro. And what of herself, I asked.

“I will be Elsa! Because I’m the birthday girl and I can be anyone I like.” 

That was the point when I gave up. If she wanted to be Elsa, she could be Elsa and we would get this Frozen party out of her system, hopefully for good!

My problem with having a Frozen party aside from the fact that it is the most overdone theme bar none was that I hated the idea of having Elsa and Anna’s face everywhere. It was also a bit hard to make it appealing to boys and I had a lot of boys on the guest list, including my own rather dismayed son. 

The first issue I resolved by going for a snowflake-disguised-as-Frozen look. As for the second, I decided to be more flexible about the activities and not be too anal about everything fitting into theme. This was in part resolved when I decided on the venue for the party. While I was racking my brain over where to host a party which would appeal to 4-year-olds, I suddenly remembered EatPlayLove Cafe. We had visited on several occasions and I liked the food, plus the kids always enjoyed it. The last time we even made Elsa shrinkies and I thought that would be fun. EatPlayLove is rather popular though so when I called, they only had the dinner slot left on the weekend after her birthday. I took it.

After that I really didn’t do much at all, only to panic in the couple of weeks before the party. This was also when I learnt an important lesson: When your party falls shortly after Chinese New Year, DO NOT order things from China for they WILL NOT ARRIVE ON TIME. My snowflake decor and little wooden snowflakes for crafting never made it. 

But in the grand scheme of things, only a few things really mattered to the birthday girl: (1) She got to be Elsa wearing her Elsa dress and her Elsa hair; (2) There was a Frozen birthday cake; (3) Her friends came to celebrate with her. These I could deliver!

My happy little Elsa.

The Decor

So I kept the decorations fairly simple. The cafe is pretty on its own and I just dressed it up a little with balloons, a banner and other design elements I got off Etsy, and stuff we already had like toys and pictures. I would have liked to do a bit more but the cafe doesn’t allow you to bring in your own food items so what I could do was fairly limited. They do offer comprehensive packages where they put together beautiful dessert tables for you, but I knew the husband would baulk at the additional (and definitely pointless, to him) cost, so I didn’t bother with that and did what I could on my own.

Up goes the banner. Happy birthday!

The good part of having a Frozen theme: (1) I told the balloon supplier I needed “Frozen” colours and they knew exactly what to pick! (2) Toys double up as props!

Her beloved pic with Elsa and Anna taken at Hong Kong Disneyland takes pride of place.

The Cake

The birthday cake is the MOST important thing to the birthday girl. It had to be a Frozen cake! With licensed characters, I decided to go the cake topper route. The cake itself I ordered from Pine Garden, my favourite supplier of decently priced tiered cream (and not fondant) cakes. I have no love for fondant, and worse, my kids absolutely love that sweet stuff. I love Pine Garden’s cakes, with their light sponges, and let’s face it, a cream cake is a cheaper alternative! The only issue I have with then is that their delivery slots fill up very quickly (or maybe I’m just v last minute) so I always cannot get a delivery slot and have to pick up the cake on my own. Fortunately this time, I had my parents come to my rescue, picking up the cake and delivering it to the party.

I picked a really simple design. So simple in fact, that my parents thought it was way too plain when they picked it up! But I think it looked good dressed up with figurines that I got off Qoo10. I picked Hazelnut Chocolate Crunch for the top tier and Mango Passionfruit for the bottom. Both were yummy.

One of Mei’s must-haves — Her Frozen cake!

One of the first things she did upon arriving was to check out her cake and I think she was well pleased with it.

The Activities

Because the guests were mainly 3 to 4 year olds, I kept these (yes, you guessed it) simple. EatPlayLove Cafe does have a lovely craft corner, and for $10 per child, the kids are given a small craft kit and allowed free rein on all the materials to make and create as they please! I supplemented this with Frozen colouring sheets and puzzle print-outs, and for older kids, I gave them the option of making shrinkies, but otherwise, it was a free for all. It’s very un-me to not want to theme all the activities down to the last detail, but I thought I would just, yup, let it go…

Very pleased to be crafting with her friends!

Showing off her, err, handiwork.

I did arrange for two mass activities to bring everyone together though. The first was a little scavenger hunt, with the clues hidden in Frozen song lyrics! I came across this scavenger hunt clues online here and knew it would be a lot of fun for little Frozen fans! Especially if they were like my kids and constantly singing the songs!

Can you solve these clues?

I got the kids to group themselves into groups of 4 or 5 and put an older kid in charge of each group, then gave each group a different order of clues to solve. As it turned out, none of the other kids were quite the Frozen lyricists that my kids were! Oops, we clearly listen to the Frozen soundtrack way too much in this household! Both my children easily solved the clues but the other children, even if they had no idea, merrily went round hunting down the clues anyway. 

Checking their clues. Mei was quick to volunteer the answers!

Happy with the prizes! Everyone got a bag of retro toys (paper balls, foam board aeroplanes, plastic bubbles, luminous bracelets, etc.) which I thought went with the theme of the cafe.

The second activity? Why the piñata of course! Though I must say I’m not sure what possessed me to make a whole Olaf piñata from scratch. After I got over my very tragic first attempt at making one, I’ve enjoyed making piñatas for the kids’ parties. I admit it, it’s mostly cos I’m too cheap to buy them!

So when I first thought of making one for this party, I thought I’d just make Olaf’s head. But the husband thought it was a bit alarming that I was going to ask the kids to bash Olaf’s head in! Whereupon I thought, hey, maybe I’ll just make Olaf in his entirety. After all, isn’t he conveniently just made out of round shapes? Famous last words. I don’t know what possessed me to think it would be a snap to paper mache and cover FIVE balloons, because guess what, it took AGES!! It took me a better part of a whole day to finish it but I must say I was pretty darn proud of it when I was done!

From my balloon draft… to Olaf!

After all that work I wasn’t sure I’d appreciate Olaf being bashed in! But that was his purpose and the kids took real delight in it.

Noey giving it a good go. As you can tell, Olaf already cannot feel his legs by this point!

Aftermath.

By the end of the party, I was very glad that we were holding the party at EatPlay Love Cafe, especially because I didn’t have to do the massive clean-up from all that craft and piñata fallout! But seriously, we enjoyed great service from the manager Tristan and his team who were generally very helpful. The food was good and the favourites were the pulled chicken mini burgers, basil chicken rice and the coconut ice-cream. The children also cleaned out the spaghetti beef bolognaise and french fries. 

I think we all had a great time but what made it a successful party for me were the wide smiles that my little girl wore all night. That made having to throw a Frozen party worth it.

Birthday girl, all smiles.

I hope you had a fantastic time turning four, sweetie! Cos we all had the best time celebrating you.

FOUR! Happy birthday darling!

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Party Resources:

• Party Venue: EatPlayLove Cafe
• Party Photography: Beanstalk Pix (who took all party pictures in this post)
• Birthday Cake: Pine Garden
• Cake Toppers: Qoo10
• Birthday Girl’s Elsa Dress: Gift, purchased from the Disney Store in UK
• Birthday Girl’s Elsa Hair: Homemade
• Balloons: KidzPartyStore.com
• Birthday Banner and Printables: Nestling Designs
• Frozen Scavenger Hunt: My Sister’s Suitcase
• Olaf Piñata: Homemade