Book Party: Thelma the Unicorn

If you follow me on social media, you’ll know that ChickPea is a dinosaur loving, roaring, stomping kind of a creature. So it was no surprise that she requested another dinosaur birthday party (see here). But she’s had two now, so we gently suggested that she think of another theme – and a week later she announced that she wanted a ‘Thelma the Unicorn’ party. Sorted. So long as we all understood that she still loved dinosaurs.

**Edit 2019: Did you know Thelma is BACK?! When a personally autographed copy of ‘The Return of Thelma the Unicorn’ (SO SPARKLY!) turned up in the mail for ChickPea, she absolutely LOST HER MIND (to say the least). That book has not left her side. You can purchase the latest of Thelma’s adventures here 

I’m rather a fan of book themed parties. Aside from the obvious joy of seeing a book come to life, the theming is all done for you thanks to the text and illustrations: invites; food; decorations; games; quizzes and dress ups.

See?! You just whack a few books around the place and some print outs. DONE.

Aaron’s Blabey is one of the giants in the Australian children’s literature scene, and has been for some time now, producing book after book that just connect with children (and many adults). Though ‘Pig the Pug’ seems to be the commercial favourite, in our house, ‘Thelma the Unicorn’ wins. It is funny, poignant, rhythmic and the kind of book that you actually don’t mind reading night in, night out for months.

We mostly stick to family parties, as the girls are fortunate to have lots of cousins who they absolutely adore.Also if it’s just family? The dogs come – including this giant – who was meant to be a lap dog for my mum and is the size of a lion.

No Book Party is Complete Without a Book Reading or Two.

ChickPea’s gifts were very unicorn themed – mainly as we quickly discovered that unicorns are huge at the moment. you can see all her gifts here, and as well as ‘Thelma the Unicorn’, I can highly recommend the ‘Keeper of the Crystals’ series, ‘Princess Betony and the Unicorn’ and ‘Unicorn on a Roll’ for quality unicorn lit – because there is some dross out there.

And now…lots of photos. Cause my blog has become my family photo album. If you’re looking for super-themed and lots of useful and pin-able photo details, you’re on the wrong blog. If you want casual and chaotic – scroll away.

Food

Lots of colourful sprinkles and silver and pink glitter: cupcakes, choc dipped marshmallows and strawberries, melting moments (thanks nan), frozen banana/peanut butter/pretzel bites from ChickPea Mag’s website here (appropriate for our ChickPea) and raspberry danishes made by our resident baker – our gorgeous International Student, Rachel. Actual lunch (who cares about the savoury huh?) was fennel and orange slaw with salt/pepper tofu, roast chicken and potatoes (nan again), cheeses, quiches and more cheeses. We like cheeses. The cake was jaffa flavoured, with six layers of chocolate and orange, lots of choc orange ganache and some more sprinkles. Image credit for the characters on the top goes to Aaron Blabey, and I’m pretty confident that as this was a private party and not for commercial purposes, I didn’t breach copyright – but the librarian in me is kind of cringing at having printed the image off Blabey’s website!

Can very highly recommend these frozen banana bites – banana, peanut, salty pretzel goodness.

Activities
I’d of course done a Google, and found a company I’d not come across before called Baker Ross, who had a plethora of unicorn party/craft items. Unicorn wands took a long time (handy), there was scratch art unicorn magnets, unicorn sticker art and Pin the Tail on the Unicorn – courtesy of Rachel. There was also a unicorn floor puzzle and book corner #librariansdaughters.

Party Bags 

Bouncy balls, unicorn tattoos and unicorn stickers from Baker Ross again (that was a find) and I meant to stick some homemade musk sticks in the bags but forgot – so they were totally sugar free party bags, much to the horror of the birthday girl.

And this crocheted unicorn? Well nan tells us she is never making another one (thinks it’s ugly!) and it ended up being a joint effort as mum was charged with putting it all together as nan was really over it and couldn’t quite envisage that it could possibly all come together oaky. Fortunately it was worth it (and I’m sure we’ll talk nan into making another) as ChickPea’s face absolutely lit up with she opened it and she’s not let go of it since. You never can tell with her – there was every possibility she’d look at mum and nan with a withering look and say, ‘I really only like dinosaur toys’ or ‘the colours you have chosen are really not working’. It was a big win to have her open it and love it.

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