Jayne is one very blessed girl. For her birthday this year, we’ve got several sponsors who came onboard to give her a wonderful birthday party and because of that, it was absolutely stress-free for me. I didn’t need to worry about venue, programme, décor or food – Everything was well taken care of for me and everyone had a great time at the party. For those of you planning for your kids’ birthday parties at external venues, this post can be a good guide & checklist as well – Hopefully, it’ll make your planning that much easier. I’ll have a consolidated contact list for your convenience right at the end of the post. :)
Party Planner: Muse Arts
A good party starts with a good party planner. I enjoy planning my kids’ parties but because I was always the main person, I almost never had a chance to truly enjoy any of them. I was usually stressed up with the 101 things on my checklist during the days leading up to the party, and running around making sure that everything was in place during the party itself. I would often be the most untidy person at the party with messy hair and melted makeup, so I always appear unglamorous in the party photos. You can imagine how grateful I am for a wonderful party planner – Muse Arts, this year, and I did not have to sweat one bit for the party preparations!
Muse Arts (http://www.muse-arts.com.sg/) is actually a music and dance company who specializes in kids enrichment classes. They aim to develop kids through music, dance and fun and their passion is contagious! When I first got in touch with them several months before Jayne’s birthday, I was actually thinking of getting them to do some activities with the little guests at the party, but they proposed to plan the whole party for me, including sourcing out for a suitable venue! That sounded perfect to me, of course. As a busy full-time working mum, I appreciated any help I could get! And so, we met up and I told them what Jayne liked and we decided on having ‘My Little Pony’ and rainbow themes for the party. It was all very exciting because our party planner, Jacintha (lady in pink in photo below), was very nice and helpful. I felt assured about leaving the entire party into her hands because she’s planned several successful parties prior to that.
Venue & Food: Wayne’s Chillout
Venue is a crucial factor for any party. I didn’t want to do a home party for Jayne, so we were looking around for a suitable and nice venue. Eventually, we decided to have it at Wayne’s Chillout on our party planner’s recommendation and we couldn’t be happier about the place! Located at the relatively new Punggol Settlement, Wayne’s Chillout is a nice and quaint café that specializes in waffles and ice-cream, eand the best part of it is that, you can look out to the sea from its alfresco area. It’s so therapeutic to spend a quiet and lazy afternoon there!
The café’s not big, so we had the whole place booked just for our use. The kids had their programs at the indoor air-conditioned area while the adults chilled out at the alfresco area – It was perfect! I had a small and cosy group of guests for the party that day, so we had a lot of space. From what I see, the whole place should be able to fit up to 20 adults and 20 kids.
Apart from the lovely décor of the place, Wayne’s Chillout served really yummy food for the guests.
There were finger sandwiches, pasta, salads, pizzas, nuggets, french fries, sotong balls etc. It was a good tea time menu and everyone enjoyed them very much.
The boss also made a special ice-cream flavor for Jayne’s birthday – Vanilla ice-cream with pink sprinkles! All the guests were treated to that as a dessert at the end.
Party Décor
I had no idea how the party décor was going to be like. All I decided on was the theme and I left it all to my party planner to decide everything else. We were told to arrive earlier at the venue so that we can still make changes if I didn’t like anything. But there was nothing I would change – Everything was lovely and I was so touched by the effort put in by Muse Arts to make the whole place so pretty.
Love the colorful raindrops hanging from white clouds on the glass walls with Jayne’s photographs – Great color impact.
The team also set up a candy bar for the kids – My Little Pony table cloth and abundance of sweets, chocolates and jellies! Absolutely delightful! Seeing our photos everywhere also made me smile. :)
Party Program: Muse Arts
Jayne loves to sing and dance, so we thought she would really enjoy a music & movement party with her little friends. It turned out to be a great choice because the little ones really enjoyed themselves so much - All thanks to Muse Arts! I’m sure you can tell how much fun the kids had just from the photos.
The kids sang and played instruments, and through the different games and activities, gained a better appreciation of music and rhythm. Not only were the activities engaging and fun, they were also educational and great for their development. What a very good party program, IMHO! The best part was that the hosts were so good with the kids – They gained a rapport with them immediately and all the kids liked them very much.
And yes, the birthday girl had her wish granted – She performed a song as Jacintha played the ukulele! This is what she enjoys doing all the time at home.
Birthday Cake & Goody Bags
The only things I had to prepare on my own for the party were the cake and the good bags. I had a specific cake idea in my mind, so I thought it would save me a lot of time searching for the cake if I made it myself. The problem was that I didn’t have that much time on hand, and I don’t have a decent oven at home for baking cakes. So, in the end I bought a butter cake off-the-shelf and decorated the cake. The end result?
The DIY décor part was easy peasy. All I did was to buy a tube of chocolate frosting (I used Hersey’s) and a packet of M&Ms and basically dumped everything onto the butter cake. The flower picks were from Daiso, so I just stuck them in at various places randomly. The silver base was bought from SKP and the name was formed using washi tape! Really easy, don’t you think? :)
For the goody bags, I chose the striped paper bags from SKP and color printed a label that I designed myself. Put in the goodies and seal with washi tapes. Really simple and fuss-free as well.
Party Photography: Cloud Productions
I was so glad that Cloud Productions agreed to help me out with the party photography this time round. If you remember, I recently shared our outdoor family photo shoot experience with them as well. They took such a huge burden off my shoulders! Not only could I enjoy the party and spend time mingling with the guests, I got really beautiful photographs of every segment of the party after that. I think from now on, I would seriously consider engaging professional photographers for all birthday celebrations. If you are planning a party as well, I say it’s money spent worthwhile if you get a professional photographer to capture all the moments of at the party! Check out this link for some tips: http://cloudproductions.sg/2015/04/5-steps-to-finding-the-right-photographer/
90% of the photographs used in this post were taken by the two photographers from Cloud Productions (The other photos by me had been watermarked ‘The J Babies’). They are a team of 4 photographers who had been selected after stringent quality checks, and each of them has their own style of photography. For Jayne’s birthday party, they sent a Chief photographer and a Junior photographer and both of them produced shots that captured a different feel of the party. I love all the photographs sent to me and these were some of my absolute favorites:
Admittedly, as a blogger myself, I know how tough it is to take good shots of active children and this is a music & movement party we are talking about! It must be a real challenge even for the best photographers. I asked the Chief photographer at the party if it was tough to do her job, and she told me as a matter-of-factly that she’s had many experiences covering birthday parties and it wasn’t difficult to her. When I saw the photographs sent to me, I knew her confidence was justified. The kids’ fun, excitement and happiness were all captured. Even the little moments and expressions did not escape the eyes of the photographers! Thumbs up for their professionalism indeed.
Stock List for Jayne’s Birthday Party
Thanks to all the kind sponsors, Jayne has a really happy birthday party. We had really good experiences with all of them, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them for your parties. :)
Party Planner & Program:
MUSE ARTS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sgmusearts?fref=ts
Contact: +65-81332251 or Email enquiries@muse-arts.com.sg
Check out the different classes they have for kids of all ages – Not only will your kids be able to master their motor skills, they will also grow in their music appreciation and have a lot of fun in the midst of that!
Venue:
WAYNE’S CHILLOUT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wayneschillout?fref=ts
Address: 3 Punggol Point Road #02-11 Punggol Settlement
Opening Hours: Mon - Fri: 2:00 pm - 11:00 pm; Sat - Sun: 11:00 am - 11:00 pm
Contact: info@wayneschillout.com.sg
Party Photography:
CLOUD PRODUCTIONS SG
Website: http://cloudproductions.sg/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sgcloudproductions?fref=ts
Contact: http://cloudproductions.sg/contact-us/
Cloud Productions SG’s Special Promo for The J Babies’ readers:
1-FOR-1
60MIN Birthday Party Photoshoot with Premium/Junior Photographer
Usual Price: $200 for 60 mins, 1 photographer
With Promo code #KlsParty, you can choose to have:
a) 60min, 2 Photographers
b) 120min, 1 photographer
This promo package includes:
- Unlimited photos
- Post-process and Enhancement provided
- Highres softcopies in JPG
- Photos sent over via email within two weeks
Such a good deal! Don’t miss it if you are planning a party soon!
Disclosure: The party planning, one-hour music & movement program and two-hour party photography were fully sponsored. The venue and food were partially sponsored.
