Why I love my collection of vintage birthday cards

I have many collections. I particularly like to collect things which don't take up very much space, and colourful paper ephemera has always appealed to me.

My parents are having a sort out and I was delighted to be able to take ownership of a big pile of vintage birthday cards from the late 1940s and early 1950s as well as some that were even older. I just love them, they are so bright and colourful with such cheerful images.

This is just a few of them, I have several from each year as well as lots of general birthday cards and also some Christmas cards. I feel as though they could be made into some kind of framed display, especially the ones with the numbers. They would be great for a child's nursery, although unfortunately we are well past that now! I've been looking online but I can't find any ideas for crafts using them which surprised me as I think they are so lovely and I'd really like to display them somehow.

Maybe they appeal to me because they make me think of a more innocent time, when children (and adults) were happy with more simple things. Maybe a birthday card was more treasured when you couldn't just drop a quick text. 

I definitely think they deserve to be looked after and appreciated!

Celebrating a birthday with a Python coding theme

This week Harry turned 13 - we now have a teenager in the house! His current top interest at the moment is the programming language Python. Over the last few months he has taught it to himself, and he spends ages working away on his coding and writing programmes. So I decided that I would bring a Python theme to his birthday.

My first thought was the cake. The Python logo is pretty simple and could probably be recreated with fondant icing but my skills aren't that good so I cheated and bought a printed cake topper. There are lots of companies that do this, I used one that I found on Amazon and have used before. You upload your own picture and choose some text, then the printed cake topper arrives a few days later. It's slightly larger than the size of cake that I normally make but I was able to cut it to fit.

The trouble is that Harry doesn't actually like cake. He likes having the cake experience and blowing out the candles, which is why I made him one, but he won't eat it. So last year I made him a batch of biscuits to go with it, and I did the same this year with some Python cookies.

I was going to make a paper template and cut the biscuits by hand, but then I was really pleased to find a Python logo biscuit cutter on eBay. The company offers cookie cutters in a huge range of designs which are machine printed and I was very happy with it. It was a little fiddly to use admittedly, especially around the eyes, but it made some lovely shaped biscuits that were instantly recognisable (well, at least to those that know their programming languages!)

I piled everything up on a cake tray, along with some glittery candles and chocolate fingers which are one of the few biscuits that he likes. Then I decorated with yellow and blue balloons. I think he was pleased!

The last big party?

Next week Mia turns six and she's very excited about her soft play party. It will be our fourth party at this particular soft play venue (our first one was Harry's fifth birthday!), because once you've found something that works why change it! It's a good sized soft play which you can hire exclusively so you don't need to worry about it being too busy, it's supervised, and there's only one exit, so you can keep an eye out for escaping children. We know exactly what we are doing now and it's not too much work.

I'm pretty sure that this will be our last big party. Hopefully from now on we can get away with something a bit smaller, or at least something that can be hosted at home like Harry's Minecraft party. This week I've been working on the party bags. In the past we've quite often ended up with a few extra children as people bring siblings along. This time I've specifically invited siblings so I'm pretty sure on my numbers, but I always make up a few extra party bags just in case anyone unexpected turns up. 

I remember how excited I was to be making up party bags for the first time - below are the ones we used for Harry's first big party! I must admit that the novelty hasn't worn off, I love making up the party bags, choosing what to put inside, and actually putting the bits into the bags.

There will be the traditional balloon and cake inside, as well as some sweets and a little chocolate bar. Then a few other bits and pieces - some bendy pencils, a little notebook and so on. I was particularly pleased with one thing that I bought - some little soft emoji keyrings which are quite sweet. I don't have many spares though so I'll have to use them all - I'm just hoping that no-one will be offended by finding a poo emoji keyring in the bag - hopefully they will just find it funny!

I'm also using up leftovers from previous parties, which I hope doesn't break any rules of etiquette. The contents of the bags are pretty much identical, but there will be a few bags with slightly different bits as I didn't want to over order. In particular the actual party bags themselves are the leftovers from four different themes - I'm hoping that no-one will notice or care! I've never done separate bags for boys and girls although I do have both pirate and princess bags, perhaps I'll have to let them choose which bag they want from the pile!

I'll be quite sad as it feels like the end of an era, but I won't miss big parties!