My Perfect Party: A passion for pink

Elaborate or elegant, low-key or loud, each month, we ask one of our blog readers to tell us what their perfect party would involve. This month Georgina Childs, one of our event assistants, from London tells us about her dream party...

Where would you host your perfect party? 
My perfect party would be a garden party, with a pink theme throughout. I'd have it one Saturday evening in July to welcome the beginning of summer. A 'Summer Fling' if you like. I'd have to pray for good weather though!

Who is the party for? 
I’d like to invite my friends and my family, my neighbours and their children, the more the merrier. 

You can invite one celebrity. Who would you invite and why? 
Beyonce of course! I’d let her have some fun first, then I’d want her to perform. 

What theme would you choose? 
My favourite colour is pink, so that's why I'd choose a pink theme. And all the guests would have to wear one pink item too, and the boys wouldn't be allowed to get out of it! 


What features will your party have? 
A photo booth with lots of silly props, so people can take home a photo and remember all the fun they had. I'd also love a pink sweetie table, with cake pops, sherbet and jelly beans in all different shades of pink. I'd quite like a pink bouncy castle as well. I'm not sure all this would fit in my garden...

Les Enfants recommend pink sweets for the sweetie table

What food would you serve?
Because the party would be quite informal, and in the evening, I’d have picky food like mini portions of chips, mini burgers and hot dogs and plenty of pink cupcakes for afterwards.  

And what would you like to drink? 
Homemade pink lemonade would suit the theme. Followed by pink champagne and pink cocktails for the adults. 

What top three songs would be on your party playlist? 
My three favourite party songs; One Direction, Best Song Ever. Katy Perry, Birthday and Vance Joy, Riptide. 

What would you put in your party bags? 
I’d send my girly guests home with pink nail varnishes and lipsticks and for the boys, a pair of pink socks! 

What would you wear to your party? 
Pink of course! I’d wear a pale pink dress and sandals so I could dance all night whilst Beyonce was performing. 

Georgina would love a pink party

Fancy throwing your own perfect party? Drop us a line here. 

Easter Eggcitement!

Afternoon everyone,

Today we are looking at some ideas to help you celebrate the holiday which is just around the corner: EASTER! That’s right, lent is nearly over, and if you’re not hosting an Easter party this year or don’t know where to start with creating one, this is the blog post for you.

Holding Easter egg hunts for the children has become more and more popular and with this Spring weather we are having, there is no excuse.

When it comes to activities to keep those little ones (and big ones!) busy, there are so many ideas. I've recently seen egg stencils, which is a great idea for young children who can decorate their own egg at any age! Also, how about homemade balloons with treats inside, they look just like eggs. Take a balloon and fill it with the prize of your choice (softer presents work well here in order to avoid puncturing the balloon), then blow the balloon up and tie it shut. Now, take some yarn in the colour of your choice and wrap it around the balloon to create a little net for when the balloon is popped. You can then hang these balloons from trees and such the like and get the children popping! The prize will fall into the yarn and the children will be very excited.  It is that easy!

Here's an example from Parents.com

Halloween Costumes

Hello, Hello ....

This week I have been searching the internet for my favourite halloween costumes and have a compiled a list of them to share with all of you incase you stuck for ideas this year, or just want to have a look at some amazing, original costumes!

Enjoy!

Found on ' A Beautiful Mess' 

Party Craft Tutorial - Treat Boxes

In this new series of posts we are excited to reveal our first party tutorial.  Expertly written and photographed by Yvonne Hunt, one of our newly appointed design team members.  Yvonne takes you through the steps to make your very own treat box, ideal for movie nights or how about Halloween!

What you need:

* Strong thick card

* Scissors        

* Guillotine (optional- but would make cutting a lot easier)

* Scor pal (again optional but you will get lovely clean scoring lines)

* Double sided tape

* Large circle punch

* Decorating papers

Army Survival Party

This week the team planned and designed a fantastic army/survival party and sweetie table for a very lucky little boy and his friends and family.

We collected a lot of colour coordinated sweets, as well as some pretty nasty treats for the table including edible barbecued centipedes, chocolate covered crickets and some lollipops with a surprise ingredient.. 

We wanted to keep the table as natural and lifelike as possible, so on Wednesday I managed to track down some great logs from Epping Forest to make our tree trunk cake stands which I am completely in love with..

Toy Kingdom

Good evening everyone, I hope you are all having a lovely summer. Here at Les Enfants we have been busy jet setting and enjoying the school holidays, I am off again tomorrow to Bergen in Norway which I am very excited about, Helen has been enjoying the Spanish Sunshine, and Katie has been touring the beautiful french countryside. However, I have had time for one more blog post before I go..

We have been busy over the past few months researching and liaising with some fantastic children's party venues across London, so I thought it would be a good idea to showcase a new found favourite of ours, 'The Toy Kingdom' which is situated on the third floor of Harrods. 

Summer Holiday Activities

We have been incredibly lucky with the weather we have been having recently, especially whilst the kids are off school- and although they are happy to entertain themselves in the garden with something as simple as the garden hose...if you are looking for a few different ideas and activities hopefully this post will be of some help to you. 

Summer Tempting Treats

How incredibly lucky have we been recently having such amazing weather in the United Kingdom! I hope the chance in our weather situation has encouraged you all to have a go at designing or decorating some wonderful summer parties. 

Below, I have collected a few of my favourite tried and tested recipes and treats, all of which are perfect for enjoying on a hot summers day. 

Summer Collection

Good Morning! I apologise for the lack of blog posts recently, I have been silly busy moving house and enjoying a much needed break in the Spanish sunshine! 

When it comes to summer, I always believe less is more. Some rustic beautiful furniture, an outside setting (weather permitting) and some beautiful flowers are all you need to create a beautiful display. 

Summer is all about DIY. Picking your own flowers, your own strawberries - making your own cocktails, and your own centrepieces. If you are planning on throwing a party or small gathering, for yourself or your little ones, just try to be creative and unique in your display. I have collected a few of my favourite garden party displays below for your inspiration;

Sweet Treats

We have all had our thinking caps on in the office this week, trying to come up with some new and different ideas for treats to go on our sweetie tables. With so much inspiration from our American neighbours we have managed to suggest a number of delicious treats to our fantastic supplier utterly charming cakes and are all very much looking forward to trying them out next week! 

I am going to give you a sneak preview of a couple of our ideas in this blog post, and if you have any further suggestions yourself i would love to hear from you!

Simple but delicious chocolate covered pretzel sticks, can be decorated in many ways to fit the theme of your party or sweetie table

Ahoy!

Last week I spent a few frantic days collecting as many ship props as I could find in order to style a photo shoot on board the HMSBelfast. The ship is permanently docked on the River Thames just south of Tower Bridge, with excellent transport links via London Bridge station which is just a short minute walk away.

We styled a nautical shoot, but of course had to be respectful of the ship, and be careful not to style the party pirate or sailor themed but instead channel a rustic, grand ship feel, to be in keeping with the ships heritage.

We set up a lovely little tea table using our own unique printables, along with our melamine plates and personalised accessories. We also set up a sweetie display using nautical themed treats and various props. The photo shoot was captured beautifully by Claudia Rose Carter.

Nautical sweetie display, all of our detail from the printables to the treats are tailored and personalised to your specific theme.

Our nautical tea table scene, with personalised napkins wraps, bottled water and party hats.

Our paper straws with our printable straw flags

Captain Noah's invitations and thank you cards

Our handmade party bags

Our main cake with anchor and rope details, and our buttercream cupcakes courtesy of Utterly Charming Cakes topped with our cake topper printables

Fantastic anchor detail on our main cake

Our personalised chocolate bars are always a huge hit on our sweetie tables,   and a lovely thing to keep to remember your childs special day

Anchor biscuits and hand painted nautical cake pops, courtesy of Cake Pop Princess

Our lovely litte 'Thank you' label which can be attached to our party bags 

If you would like any further information on this party or any other party themes that we do, please do not hesitate to give us a call on 020 8502 9988 or send us an email at info@lesenfants.co.uk,

I hope you have enjoyed this post, I certainly enjoyed styling it,

Speak soon!

Zahra Noble xxx

We Love Balloons...

We love using balloons at our parties, and I personally love researching new and different ideas on how to decorate the balloons! I personally have a huge folder full to the brim of photos and inspiration so I thought I would share a few of my favourites with you to inspire you to use these all time party favourites!

I love these chalk board balloons. A very quick and simple way to personalise your party! Of course black and white feels slightly more grown up, by adding colour to the balloons or ink, this could be brilliant for any childs party

Confetti filled balloons! A firm favourite of mine and very simple to do! Just make sure the balloons you choose are a pale colour so that you can see the confetti clearly.

Transparent balloons are a lot of fun, and by attaching streamers/ribbons or tassle you can tailor them to any theme or party. 

Here at Les Enfants we absolutely love using our 3ft balloons. Attaching fringing, whether its short tassles or floor length, it really does add some extra charm. 

I love this idea from, it would look brilliant in a tall room to have hundreds of helium filled balloons with this confetti detail attached. 

These ice cream balloons are so incredibly pretty. We created our own for our ice cream parlour party and they really do look very pretty indeed! 

I hope you are all having a lovely week and thank you again for all of our brand new likers, we really appreciate all of your support!

Speak soon, 

Zahra xxx 

Perfect Party Favours...

When deciding on the best gifts to give your guests, there are so many different possibilities it can be difficult to choose the ideal favour. This blog entry will focus on some of my favourites to show you a few ideas that are slightly different to hopefully give you some ideas to use for your next party...

These beautiful cake pop boxes come in a variety of colours and could be an incredibly pretty memento of your party

I love these DIY bubble gifts!  The stickers can easily be personalised for your own unique message, meaning they can be used for just about any party theme!

A different but very beautiful idea in my opinion. Fresh strawberries and scones with clotted cream, these would be perfect for a garden party!

if you have your perfect gift in mind, and just looking for a pretty party bag then why not copy this beautiful design?  You can either make your own or simply decorate a plain bag using ribbon and natural twine. Would be great for a 'shabby-chic' theme.

I love these ballerina party bags made using tulle netting. Such a pretty idea, and a bag that i'm sure your little guests will want to re-use over again and again.

A different idea again could be these 'cupcakes or cookies in a jar'. This particular idea has become fairly popular in the last year, and with the possibility to use any recipe it can be different every time. From my own experience, children simply love baking and will no doubt leave your party very excited to get cracking on with these homemade treats.

Following on from the jar idea... Popcorn is an incredibly healthy treat (with the right topping ofcourse) and is also great fun to make. Ofcourse you can add any topping you like.. melted chocolate and raisins, parmesan, sugar and cinnamon...I make popcorn almost every night drizzled with honey and a touch of salt.. messy but delicious! 

I found this photo about a year ago and have been dying to recreate these party bags.. however no one as of yet has had a party theme that I could use them for... I just really like them, such a fun a different idea! My little cousin Noah (he is 3) recently decided to attempt to leave home (he was grounded I think and in a huff..) and made himself one of these before asking my uncle to give him a lift to the train station, fortunately he changed his mind when realising he had no money but it gave me the idea of using these for a vintage train party.. I think the possibility of someone having a hobo-themed party in Central London is a little farfetched.. 

simply but lovely idea for an arts and craft party.

And finally these fantastic 'Neverland/Lost Boys' party bags. Such a simple idea that would look fantastic on any table. Ofcourse this idea can be tailored to any type of party just by simply choosing a different felt shape.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, as always if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me on zahra@lesenfants.co.uk.

Speak soon!

Zahra x

Pom Poms, Streamers (and everything in between!)

Good morning everyone! Here in the office, when it comes to decorating our parties, we are always on the look out for new and exciting ideas. The post today will focus on a few of my personal favourite decorations to hang up, as well as a couple of links to online tutorials to help you make your own. 

Pom Poms

Pom poms are a very popular choice when it comes to styling our parties. With so many different varieties  of colours, materials and styles, these can look very effective regardless of theming, age or gender. The trick is to be patient with them, and take the time to 'fluff' them out properly for their full effect.

Tulle (or netting) pom poms are probably my favourite, because of their delicate appearance. These decorations would be perfect for a garden party or little girls 'princess' or 'ballerina' themed party.

Tissue pom poms are the most commonly used and are incredibly easy to make. For detailed instructions please click here.

I have yet to use wool pom poms to decorate a party (these are usually slightly smaller so for a party would be best in a garland), however I have just finished making some for my home and thought it would be a shame not to include them!

Bunting

Bunting is another great way to add something extra to your party with very little cost involved. Bunting can easily be transformed into a banner for a personalised backdrop, or simply hung to give your party a pretty, vintage feel.

Whether you are after a country style garden party..

..a shabby-chic birthday or a simple backdrop.

Japanese washi tape is also great to use to create mini bunting.

Balloons

When thinking about ceiling decorations, balloons will not be the first thing that pops (ha!) into your mind- however if you are looking for a cheaper option to a hanging lantern, or just something different, this could be it.

 Simply place a marble inside a balloon and attach some ribbon or string and you have yourself a very pretty decoration! With so many different options of balloons available, it would be a shame not to experiment.

Lace Lanterns

I recently bought myself a whole load of vintage lace doilies with the idea to make this next suggestion for my living room, however- if you have a little time on your hands it could also be used as a very pretty party prop. 

 Once assembled, simply place a battery light candle inside from a lovely warm atmosphere at your next party. (Full instructions here)

Streamers

Although sceptical at first (I thought they were a little tacky...) with so many different possibilities, if done properly, streamers are an excellent and beautiful way of decorating your party. 

Whether your using as a backdrop,

creating a chandelier 

or hanging from the ceiling

streamers have the ability to be that 'wow' factor that your looking for.

I hope you have enjoyed this post, please continue to send me questions or suggestions for my next post,

speak soon!

Zahra xxx