Sunnie's 4th Birthday Party

On August 1 we celebrated our daughter Sunnie's 4th birthday with a party.

It was held at our home on a beautiful sunny day with the theme being a "princess party" ... that didn't mean everyone dressed as a princess, just the birthday girl.

I created some organic recipes - the birthday cake, scones, cupcakes, sandwiches cut out in hearts and flowers, berry mallow whip, beetroot dip and chocolate cheesecake as found in the book Additive Free Kids Parties. I bought a vegetarian quiche from the local bakery and some yummy Chipman corn chips from our local organic store.

Decorations were kept to a minimum. I made a children's table castle centrepiece using a cardboard box, I made a 4m double-sided 21-flag bunting from recycled materials which looked great as a backdrop for our outside eating and play area and also a double-sided 10-flag bunting to decorate the buffet table.

I decorated the tables and eating area with beautiful fallen Almond Blossom petals sourced from the local playground as the area we in which we live is alive with almond blossoms right now (we even have a festival named after it!) The tablecloth was patterned with a beautiful design and was sourced from a local second-hand store.

As you'd expect I used the compostable tableware that we supply in our store, I also got my hands on some PLA wine goblets for the berry mallow whip and also topped the birthday cake with our pure beeswax birthday candles.

Sunnie had a great day with her friends - changing clothes just about every 10 minutes (she is a style diva) - and enjoying lots of free play. As she is 4 we didn't feel it was necessary to have structured games. There was enough around the home to keep their imaginations at play.

I put my effort into sourcing organic ingedients to prepare the food, finding earth-friendly and second-hand materials to decorate our home and using disposable tableware which is compostable. We invited nature and considered her in all aspects of our party wherever possible. It wasn't any extra work or more money either, it just involved making better choices.

To top it off the children went home with homemade cloth loot bags. Making these and the bunting was a bit of extra effort, but you can buy them online if you are not a sewer. The loot bags included a rock crayon each (see our bags), bracelets we got from opshops, organic lollipops and pink yoghurt frogs.

The nice comments we received at the end of the day confirmed to me once again that more often than not less is more, simple is often best, being minimal and holistic truly triumphs over commercial and plastic and that nature is a great friend to invite if you want a successful, blissful party for all to enjoy.

(The only thing that was disappointing was Jonathan forgetting to take lots of pictures.)