I’m notoriously bad at organising birthday parties for my children, I think I have done about 4 in all of their lives. But when we got offered a Harumika Party Pack to review, Amelie got her wish – a birthday party for the school friends she was about to part company with that was all about her great love – fashion. I ended up agreeing to host 8 little girls for (count them) 4 hours as they tried out a variety of fashion-y crafts to tax and explore their creativity to the max.
We started off with a warm up activity, using Tulip Fabric Paints to decorate canvas bags that I had hoarded. I knew they would be going home with a fair bit of clutter lovingly made crafts, so a bag seemed a good plan. It didn’t take long but it was a good way to keep people busy as they all arrived and as it was incredibly hot, they all dried quickly.
Once they’d done that, we moved on to the Djeco Fashion Design kits; we actually used two different ones of these, though one would have been plenty for the number of girls we had there. I never fail to be impressed by how much there is in a Djeco kit.
There are LOADS of sheets for designing on, a lovely pack of long lasting felt tip pens and stickers that add accessories. This was a fraction of what was in 2 kits. They had loads of fun with this and it kept them occupied right up to lunch.
I did laugh quite a lot at how many of them were slightly bemused at the idea of fashion design without an iPod app 😆
Lunch. You should have seen the horror at me putting salad on the table. I swear no one touched it except my kids!
Then it was on to the main event… Harumika!
We’ve had one of these before and it was a big hit. You get a mannequin which has a slot down the back, and a tool, plus fabric, stickers and belts. By tucking the fabric into the slot after wrapping it to make the style of clothes, you can secure it into all sorts of styles. We were given lots of fabric but added more as well and the girls had a ball with it. I’m told by various mums they went straight on to birthday lists too.
Hard at work.
Everyone’s favourite design.
This years Puddle fashion collection. This kept them occupied for a long time, altering their costumes to try out different styles, colour combinations and accessories. It was a great part of the party, with the added advantage they could take their models and extra fabric, home in their party bags. I think you could easily do it with one mannequin each and a heap of your own fabric. If you had a polaroid or something, catwalk snaps as they did each design would be great. It’s a good party activity and kept them busy for 45 minutes at least. I know it’s been a popular go home craft.
To keep everyone focused on taking time over their designs (but because I hate judging) I got them to judge each other for prizes through the day. With each craft they made a few, chose their favourite (which we numbered) and submitted it and then everyone got two slips of paper to vote for them. Fran was adjudicator and the top three designs got a prize. Saved me from having to feel guilty and meant my kids also had a chance of winning if the others liked their designs too, instead of me having to avoid choosing them. Worked really well.
After that it was cake time (see later post!) and then we finished off with some Hama Bead fashion design. I love the teenage board for this and there is a new kit this year which means you can design tween/teen outfits easily. One kit for beads and ideas and a few extra teenage boards worked just fine.
Party bags, to keep with the theme, had ribbon, buttons and fabric from our new haberdashery shop, some Harumika keyrings, some wooden bead sets and so on. I hope they went down well.
Disclosure: we were sent the Harumika supplies, a prize, invites etc for review. Opinions are our own. The other crafts come from our own toy shops.
jealous!!!!!! 😀
You’re brave Merry! I feel like a lie down after looking at that lot.