Dragonfly Bento Box: A Safari theme 5th Birthday @ Art Speaks Studio, Serangoon Gardens

For the last three years, my boy had celebrated his big day in his preschool for convenience and simplicity. However, this year I decided to throw a party at Art Speaks Studio for my son's 5th birthday. This would be his first birthday bash outside his kindergarten. It was so apt at his age I thought because he understood the meaning and was able to relate since he had attended a few of his good friends' birthday parties and read numerous story books about it. Another reason was I would like him to 'experience' it since the last big birthday bash was during his first year birthday which apparently he has no impression at all.. Last but not least, he missed some of his old friends from his previous preschool and therefore, I took the opportunity to invite them for gathering and catch up.

Why I choose Art studio? I first saw it in one of the Mom's blogger and instantly I knew this was the kind of party I wanted i.e. to give my son and other kids to try on canvas painting besides the usual party flavours. He has mentioned many times he would like to learn to paint but Papa was not keen to let him go for formal painting lessons. Hence, I killed two birds with one stone by holding a party in an art studio and also, fullfilling his desire to paint. So I started to search for different art studios and had shortlisted two i.e. Wow Art Studio at Thomson and Art Speaks Studio at Serangoon Gardens. Unfortunately, Wow Art studio did not response to my written enquiry, neither did they bother to attend to my queries when I made a call directly. I was really disappointed and unhappy about it because my request was totally ignored. On the other hand, the person incharge, Patrick, at the Art Speaks Studio welcomed me to check out the premises before booking. We did on one Sunday afternoon! Patrick even sat down with us to discuss the party details in great length. Both hubby and son like the place and immediately, we placed a deposit confirming the booking on 7 Apr 2013 from 2 to 4pm.

We took up the party package which comprised of face painting, canvas painting, food, cake-cutting, photo taking and pinata (optional but I paid for it). I ordered a 1.5kg animal safari theme cake from Smiling Orchid because my baking skill is not up to a standard to make with such elaborate details. And I heard reviews from other Mommy that their cake is nice and not too sweet. Best of all, my son loves buttercream and so do I! It was a perfect cake for the animal safari theme party. And the children went "ooh" and "aah". There was shovering and pushing when kids gathered around the cake for the birthday song. Luckily, the cake remained intact despite a little commotion.

I was pleased with the decorations and party setup. They even accomodated my hubby's request to have the owl painting to be displayed in the party. I have selected food like fried mee hoon, fried chicken wings, fishballs and fruit punch for beverage. The latter tasted really bad (I will not recommend it. Bring your own. And I did brought Marigold apple and orange jucie which we kept in their mini fridge. However, we had forgotten about it when the party started). My little boy's feedback on the food was good but Granny commented that it was not nice except for the fishball. Bearing in mind, my boy was not a fussy eater. He ate almost everything!

Children had a blast at the party; from the quiet moment of animal canvas painting and, singing the birthday song in harmony, to the grand finale of bashing up the blue elephant pinatas where the kids became rowdy after it was being ripped off releasing all the candies/goodies. At the end of the party, each and every kids were given a goodie bag with a mini-blank canvas, paint pots, a brush and a safari theme eye-mask in addition to individual's animal canvas painting and a group photo.

It was truly a fun-tastic and memorable day.