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. 

  

Entrance

 

Birthday Cake from Smiling Orchid

 

Party setup

 

Safari theme party

 



Elephant Pinatas



Goodie Bags and party flavours

Animal canvas painting - my boy's favourite leopard



 

Birthday Cupcakes

My son celebrated his 4th birthday in advance on Tuesday at his preschool together with six other children.  Every year, I have one big project i.e. my son's birthday.  Papa is not in favour of throwing a birthday bash for our little boy.  Hence, every year, he would celebrate together with his classmates at the preschool. Thereafter, we will have a mini one with our family members.  Last year, he had it at the Singapore Zoo "Breakfast with Orang Utan".  This year, I planned it at the Jurong Bird Park, "Lunch with the Parrots".  Interestingly, my boy adores animals more than cars.  When we talked about going to these two places, his eyes instantly light up and hopping around the house like a rabbit.  

I made chocolate cupcakes this year with the 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates' edible image that I ordered from Reeney's baking supplies.  This is also a special request from my son.  And he also got his wish to put on a red headscarf pretending to be the 'Jake', the pirate.  This is my first attempt baking cupcakes and I would say, the buttercream icing, is awfully sweet.  But the kids love it and savour every bit of it. The receipe I used is from Joy of Baking.  Usually, I would reduce the amount of sugar by 20% or more for all my baking.  And I did it for the chocolate cake except for the icing (in order to get the right consistency to pipe on the cupcake.)  I have a couple of sleepless night searching the correct size of cupcake case and boxes and worrying about the end result.  Moreover, I began to train my boy to sleep in his room but every nights, he would wake me up to sleep together with him.  But my efforts pay off, he is finally able to sleep alone in his own room without waking up in the middle of night looking for me.  Hooray!  Okay, I digress a little...  Continue the birthday..  Besides the cupcakes, I also bought 7 Mickey Mouse and Minnie stationery set to be given to each and every kids.  And I also promised him to twist balloons for everyone.  I managed to do a few simple balloons like pirate sword, doggie, giraffe and hummingbird which I learned from internet.  Lastly, I enlisted my Mom's help to buy a box of chocolate in the shape of gold coins from Sheng Siong (because I could not find any in all the candy stores!).  This is to match the theme; pirates and gold doubloons.  My hubby teased that it is too much for me to handle.  But I had proved him wrong because I did it! 

On that day, children were excited over the colourful cupcakes and each got to choose their preferred choice of image.  The funniest thing was they peeled the edible image off thinking it was sticker.  They just love the buttercream icing!  And my greedy son has two cupcakes at one go!  They were so happy they too received a little gift and gold doubloons from the birthday boy.   Oh, yes, the balloons!  Everyone went crazy over the balloons.  One of his classmate, Jake, was eyeing the balloons and politely asked me  "Excuse me, can I have the blue dog?" when  everybody were too busy eating their cupcakes to notice it.  Clever!

It was a wonderful birthday despite it lasted only 30 minutes.  Most importantly, my son and his friends had a fun and great day!

Dinosaurs Birthday Cake

Finally, this is the dinosaurs chocolate birthday cake I baked for my boy's birthday with avocado cream cheese frosting I brought it to his preschool for celebration.  The cake looks fresh with its army green avocado and orange icing and the cute dinosaurs in the morning.  But the icing melts and lighten the orange colour.  Overall, the most important is my son likes it.