baptism planner

It's crunch  time for us.  Just five (5) more days before our baby Tamara's christening.  We started planning early but it feels like three months still isn't enough.  ;-)

As suggested by most party planners I've downloaded, it is best to start the planning for a not-so-big party at least two months prior. I started looking for the church and reception venue as early as June.  After searching the net for every possible venue and getting an idea of the average cost per person, we set the total budget for the baptism, selected and advised the godparents and made the reservations by early October.  We only needed to make a reservation fee at the reception venue so we can finalize the guest list after.

Once we have the guest list, the invitation is up.  My husband is an artist to the design is no problem.  What bugged us most was how to distribute it if we decided to have a printed invite.  **sigh**  We also started searching for possible party favors and tokens for the godparents.  For Hailey's christening in 2007, we gave out DIY rosaries.  It turned out great but since I'm in a Christian company and a lot of our guests are Christians, we decided to give out something else.

We've already decided on the menu even before we made reservations so that's already one thing crossed off our to do list.  Next is sending out the invite which we did electronically through Event Kingdom.  (Will go into details of that in another post.)  The baptismal ceremony will only take about half an hour while the reception will last for at least three (3) hours so we decided to go for a budget baptismal gown and spend on the after party outfit instead.  

A trip to Divisoria was put to waste when we weren't able to buy the canvas bags that we went there for. Thankfully we were able to buy ribbons and rosettes for the baptismal candles that I'd be designing.  With a whole weekend put to waste and another party favor idea down the drain, we went behind the schedule.  So now, with only 5 days to go, we are still working on the party favors and baptismal candles.

The only thing we were able to cross of our to do list this week is the reconfirmation with guests.  And it's not even 100% done yet.  Although it's not really my party and the star of the day is my daughter, I still hope to get my beauty rest before then.  Don't want any pics of me looking harassed. ;-)

For any one else who'd like to do the party organizing in an organized way, I'm sharing with you the baptismal planner I made especially for this event.  Click on the photo to download.

the birthday cake

This is a two-month overdue post.  But as they say, but late than never....

Anyways, for Hailey's 6th birthday last October, we had a change of plans at the last minute.  We scrapped the cupcake idea together with the DIY birthday plans so the toppers and invites I designed went to waste. And since we made reservations with Jollibee a week before the party, we did not meet the lead time for the Red Ribbon theme cake they offer with the party package.  Barbie cakes from Red Ribbon costs at least P2,000 and half of it is made of styrofoam.  So I decided I couldn't let Hailey's birthday pass without me doing anything craftsy.  Her birthday cake became by project.

Red Ribbon has this dedication cake for really low prices.  I decided to get the medium sized mocha one  and decorate it as school ground.  Keeping in line with the Barbie theme, I downloaded a picture of Barbie in Princess Charm School. 

Downloaded printable for the cake design

To emphasize the "school" setting, I made the signage and colored the DPS school logo pink.  I've also been seeing a lot of pennant banners for birthday and decided to download one as well.   I later realized that with the time I had, I was way over my head to think I'd be able to pull that off.  So I just threw in the other things I found at home like the plastic doll chair and TADA! Hailey's birthday cake:

Made miniature books and newspaper to put on the plastic
doll chair together with the pink crown.

From blue to pink - DPS school logo.

Printed out signage and taped them
on barbecue sticks.

The final product: Hailey's 6th Birthday Cake

Hailey loved the cake especially after I let her put the colored sprinkles on.  She enjoyed decorating the cake with me and even woke up early that day.  I wonder when we can do this again?  Christmas party? ;-)

Hailey at 6

We were planning to host a simple party at school for Hailey's 6th birthday last October 8.  We were supposed to just order spaghetti from Jollibee and prepare chicken lollipops and hotdogs on stick at home.  But a kindhearted granny decided to make it more special by partially sponsoring a Jollibee kiddie party for her.  So exactly 7 days before her birthday, I started preparing for a Jollibee party.

Jollibee has a website dedicated for kiddie parties.  So I only had to go to the website and follow the steps in booking for a party.

1. Find a Store
This is where you select the Jollibee store where you would like to hold your party and choose the desired date and time.  Our first consideration was for Hailey to be able to enjoy her birthday with her classmates, the party needed to be in school.  Thankfully, there are branches of Jollibee that do outside parties for a minimal additional charge.  There are three (3) Jollibee branches near our place - (1) Mindanao Avenue, Pag-asa, (2) Cherry Foodarama along Congressional Ave and (3) Sta. Quiteria.  The first two are not accredited to handle outside parties so we were directed to the Sta. Quiteria branch.  I immediately called them up to inquire.  The same rates and packages online which are for in store parties are applicable - except that fries and sundaes are not allowed because of quality may deteriorate.  There is also an additional P500 to the party fee to cover the transportation cost.  Reasonable enough for me.

2. Plan your Party
Next step is to choose the theme (My Bestfriend Jollibee, Jollitown, Batman and Hello Kitty).  The Barbie theme was still available then so we got that one.  The party fee already includes 20 game prizes, 10 boxes of crayons, 1 message board, 30 balloons and a 30-minute Jollibee mascot appearance.  You can also choose to add other amenities like invitations, tray liners, lootbags, party hats and name tags.  We just added invitations to keep to the theme and also because they're relatively cheap at P1.50 per piece.  I was a bit disappointed with the game prizes, though, because looking at the photo, I was expecting it to be 20sets of game prizes.  It would have been okay if it was like tumblers and toys.  But included in the 20 are Jollibee cards.  I was like, "huh? that's it?".
For the food, they have four (4) packages for 30 persons to choose from.  Or you can create your own meal for a minimum of P4,000 food purchase.  Since most of the packages includes fries and sundaes, we created our package which includes chicken and spaghetti meal for 30 persons, 20 Del monte juice in tetra packs, 10 coke in cans.  It still doesn't meet the minimum food purchase so we just added 5 peach mango pies and a bucket of chicken joy which we took home.  Jollibee also provides Red Ribbon theme cakes for only P900.  However, you have to place your order at least one week ahead and it was a bit late for us so we just bought one outside.  Once this is all done, it's time to...

3. Pay for your Party
For bookings made online, you can pay using your credit card.  What we had arranged was an outside party so we went to the store the settle the charges.  They required full payment of the party fee plus 50% of the minimum food purchase required.  The rest we settled after the party.

Party decors brought by the team.

 

Hailey with Jollibee

The kids were so thrilled to see Jollibee!

The birthday princess

The party turned out to be a breeze.  It was so much simpler than my plan to bring home-cooked chicken lollipops and store-brought cupcakes.  I was also planning to bring balloons and make my own cupcake topper to match the theme of the party.  But with Jollibee party package, not only do I not have to wake up early to prepare the food, I didn't have to brink anything else but my baby.  Well, except for the cake since we didn't meet the lead time required.  The crew also brough decorations and sound system.  They set up the place before the actual party began.  And there was a party host!  The kids enjoyed the party and my daughter was so happy.