Em ‘n’ M’s Events: Masquerade Magic
I’m really excited to write this post as it’s the first event I’m blogging in real time. All the others in these series will be retrospective. This one is for my sister’s 40th birthday party where she is going all out and with me as her unofficial co-planner, we have really got it all! Naturally, our gift to her is to supply an activity package for the children, of whom there will be 8, ranging in age up to 13. My sister has been planning this for so long, and we started brainstorming months and months ago. I can’t believe it’s actually here!
Read on to see how we have created Masquerade Magic
Em ‘n’ M’s supplies
Activity packs:
Bespoke booklet with 6 pages of activities completely customised to the event/theme
Peacock decoration craft
Colouring pencils
Bubbles
Sweet Store:
Jars (unfilled)
Scoops and tongs
The party
The venue was the first thing she booked. A beautiful art deco hotel that is just down the road from where she lives, and overlooking the stunning south coast. She was conscious of her birthday being in the middle of wedding season, so wanted that secured booking.
We visited the space together to see what we had to work with and made some plans with the hotel event co-ordinator.
Along with booking the venue, she decided she wanted to hire casino tables for entertainment. We then spent an afternoon brainstorming themes for the night.
Settling on Masquerade, we needed to choose a colour scheme. More brainstorming later, the subtheme of Peacock was born; blue, turquoise and gold!
I then created the invitations on Canva and we used their printing service for convenience and professionalism. We found them to be very efficient, with lots of email updates along the way. The finished article was beautiful, although we hadn’t checked or specified the paper type, and so we were disappointed that they weren’t sturdy cardstock.
With the venue providing a blank canvas, we have been able to let our creativity flow with table decorations and entertainment options.
The hotel are catering savouries only; so we have made provision for a sweet table. The birthday cake will be the centrepiece with jars of old-school sweets to self-serve as ‘dessert’.
With having a good understanding of the party and expectations, Millie and I got to work creating the activity packs for the kids.
Activity Packs
Activity Booklets
Our booklets are created using Canva and because I had made the invitations, I kept the same design and transferred into the booklets.
One of our unique selling points is an individualised colouring page of the Guest of Honour, in this case, my sister. Millie took one of our favourite pictures and turned it into a cartoon. This is a surprise for my sister, I didn’t tell her we were doing that. There are 5 other pages of activities including noughts and crosses, squares and a bespoke wordsearch. We also supply mini colouring pencils to complete the activities.
Craft
Again, the craft is planned to match the theme. The goal being something personal that the kids can take home as a souvenir of the event and makes little mess. My favourite place to find these are Baker Ross and Cotton Twist. *These are not affiliate links, I just love their products!
For this event we have got Peacock hanging decorations from Baker Ross. They come in bulk packs with instructions. We tailor make instructions (Canva again!) to match the theme and package them individually to put in the packs.
With the entertainment options - family friendly casino tables, photobooth and DJ - there is little need for extensive activities, so we agreed to do a shorter booklet and one craft.
There will always be bubbles!
And then the Magic happened…
We had 2 hours to set the room up. My sister had pulled some of it together ahead of time. I gave her the jars to fill at home and she prepared the centrepieces. We just had to make sure we transported it all safely. Luckily we didn’t have to go far.
She had banned all guests from entering the room early and helping with set-up so they could experience the event in all its glory. I in turn banned her for the same reasons. After all, this is her party, her celebration. The Em ‘n’ M’s crew (Millie, Lucas and I) got to work blowing up balloons and setting up the tables and trying not to get in the way of the hotel team and their own setting-up jobs.
It was a wonderful evening jam-packed with entertainment for a completely unforgettable fabulous fortieth!
Happy birthday Laura and thank you x
