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Angelina Ballerina Party

An Angelina Ballerina party is a lovely idea for budding ballerinas, and has been one of our surprise hits. You may be surprised that she first made her appearance in 1982, and there are now over twenty popular books by Katherine Holabird.

Of course what popularised it no end was the cartoon series, with Judy Dench as Angelina's mother. And if you were luck enough to catch the English National Ballet's Angelina's Star Performance you're probably a bigger fan than even us!

We always think it's nice to give the children characters at a themed Angelina Ballerina party - of course the birthday girl will want to be Angelina Mouseling, the mouse who loves to dance. Mr and Mrs Mouseling are Angelina's parents - one for the grown ups. Alice is Angelina's best friend, and if there's a little brother to entertain you might want to suggest he be Henry. (Alternatively you might just get him a pirate sword and have a friend round to play. Boys and ballet is often not a great combination.)

We have some lovely inviations (with matching thank-yous) to get the theme off to a head start. If you're confident that your guests are all ballet fans (especially if the child goes to ballet classes and is inviting her friends) you can ask for the children to come in leotards. Music from the Nutcracker is a sure-fire hit. Our hair-clips, bracelts and lip-gloss are useful if you want a dressing-and-make-up activity. It's a good idea to do this while the children are arriving and they can all make a fuss over each other.

Two excellent dance-type games are keep-the-balloon-in-the-air and musical statues. Again, you'll need some ballet music for the full effect. We know some mums even get their ballet teacher round for a quick twenty-minute session.

While you're setting up lunch / tea, you might get an adult to read an Angelina story. That always calms everyone down.

For Angelina Ballerina party decorations - as many pink and silver balloons as you can manage! Our Angelina paper bunting looks great strung up around the wall too.

Trivia - did you know that Helen Craig, who does the pictures, is actress Ellen Terry's great-grand-daughter?

Ariel the Little Mermaid Party

Bob the Builder Party

Bratz Fashion Pixiez Party

Butterflies Party

Cars Party

Cars Supercharged Party

Championship Football Party

Charlie & Lola Party

Cinderella Party

Cuddly Kitten Party

Cup Cakes Party

Dinosaur Party Party

The great thing about a dinosaur party is that boys and girls of all ages can join in and get excited. It's a particularly good choice if you're expecting children from different age groups - so older or younger brothers and sisters can join in too.

Since the children will probably know their party dinosaur's better than you, here's a quick refresher. T-Rex is the scary one. Brontosaurus is the giant one with the long neck (extra points if you know that he didn't really exist). Stegasaurus has scaly plates on his back, and Triceratops is a rhino on steroids. And Pterodactyl is the flying one with the big beak.

Since no-one knows what colours Dinosaurs really were, your dinosaur party can be a riot of rainbow prehistoric beasts.

Party Ideas - we suggest the grown-up plays the part of the paleantologist, hunting for dinosaurs. You may want a pith-helmet for the full effect. You can hide dinsosaur eggs round the house or garden and ask the children to find them and bring them back. A really silly, fun dinosaur party game is to create some dinosaur feet by just cutting out large pieces of cardboard, sticking them to one of the children's feet (or your own) and try to catch the children while waddling about in your giant flippers.

To calm the children down you can get them to sit in a circle and take it in turns to pretend to be a dinosaur, allowing the other children to guess. We sell a Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Dinosaur game too which always proves popular.

If the children are old enough, turn out the lights, get them to hide, and pretend to be a T-Rex on the prowl. (NB This won't calm them down at all once you find them!)

As a finale, a dinosaur pinata is an excellent climax to any party. You can fill it with sweets and our dinosaur confetti. We've got a really good range of party dinosaur accessories for going home time, so take your pick!

Disney Fairies Party

Disney Fairy Magic Party

Disney Princess Fantasy Party

Disney Princess Magic Party

Disney Princess Once Upon a Dream Party

Dora the Explorer Party

Dr Who Party

England Football Party

Fairy Girl Party

Fifi and the Flowertots Party

Fire Fighter Party

First Birthday Boy Party

First Birthday Girl Party

Football Frenzy Party

Garden Girl Party

Hannah Montana Party

Harry Potter Party

High School Musical Party

High School Musical 2 Party

Hocus Pocus Party

Hugs & Stitches Boy Party

Hugs & Stitches Girl Party

In the Night Garden Party

We suspect that In the Night Garden will reach the same cult status as the Magic Roundabout did thirty years ago. It's hard to believe it's only been around since March 2007, but since then we've all grown fond of Iggle Piggle and his (?) friends.

If you're really going for the full-on Night Garden Party effect you may want to improvise cut-outs of your favourite characters. A few Tittifers on the wall seem to work well. You probably know the regulars already, but of course there's:

Iggle Piggle, the star of the show
Upsy Daisy, the girl with the hair with a life of its own
Makka Pakka, the little beige character who cuddles stones - borderline obsessive?
The three Tombliboos - Umm, Eee and Ooo
The Pontipine and Wattinger families (give yourself bonus points if you knew the name of the Wattingers)
The Hahoos - enormous floating balloons which may be a little sinister
The Tittifer birds who sing everyone to sleep
The Ninky Nonk train and the Pinky Ponk airship, both of which are apparently sentient beings

So what do you do for an In The Night Garden party? It's a lovely theme - young children will obviously recognise the characters. It's probably best not to try to dress up as Upsy Daisy - that could be a bit scary. But if you can find a big Upsy Daisy doll to pass around, you'll find it immensely popular.

The best thing to do is for Mums and children to sit in a circle and sing the characters songs together. All together now: Yes - my name is Igglepiggle...

Knights & Dragons Party

Lazy Town Party

Join Stephanie, Sportacus and their friends on a magic adventure in Lazytown! Lazytown is a new introduction for 2008 and features Stephanie and Sportacus in a bold yellow Lazytown party design.

First things first - you'll need the Bing-Bang song. Be warned - once it's in your head, it's likely to stay there for at least a month. You can get it here (but don't say we sent you!).

You might want to give your guests characters. If it's a girls party, then the girl will obviously want to be Stephanie. Boys will probably want to be Sportacus, but you can have that as a grown-up role. The problem is that Stephanie only really has three other friends (all puppets in the show) : Stingy, Trixie and Pixel. And frankly they're not very cool. Boys as Sportacus and girls as Stephanie is a good premise for your Lazytown party.

Games are quite easy if one of the grown-ups is prepared to be Robbie Rotten. This is harder than it sounds, because spandex suits of the kind favoured by Robbie are hard to come by. Plus you'll need a prosthetic chin for the full effect. Still, children are quite prepared to make believe, so any game being chased by a Robbie Rotten character is sure to be a ft.

Because Lazytown is all about activitiy, your Lazytown party ought to have some dancing. The songs are so catchy that all you have to do is play them and even the adults will be bopping away.

Food is a bit trickier - we're not sure Sportacus would approve of lots of cake. But hey, it's a birthday party! Having fun is what it's all about :)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Party

Monster Party Party

Mostly Ghostly Party

Ninja Turtles II Party

Noddy Party

Nursery Friends Baby Shower Party

On the Farm Party

One Special Boy Party

One Special Girl Party

Pingu Party

Pirates II Party

Pirates of the Caribbean Party

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 Party

Pirates' Treasure Party

Pop Star Party

Postman Pat Party

Power Rangers Mystic Force Party

Power Rangers Operation Overdrive Party

Puppy Party Party

Ratatouille Party

Red Spotty Party

Roary the Racing Car Party

Roary is one of our favourites - made all the better for Peter Kay's character Big Chris. Having a Roary party is actually pretty easy. The chidren will know the characters, but you may want to use their colours and numbers and give each of the children a car to be. They are:

Roary (the birthday boy or girl) is Red with a number One
Maxi is a a yellow Italian car with a blue baseball cap and the number Five
Cici is a French racing car in pink - she's number Three
Tin Top (the voice is Peter Kay again) is the stock-car character - he's purple and has number Eighty Eight on his roof
Drifter is a yellow Japanese car with number Six and a Dragon motif
Plugger is a tow-truck in sky blue with Caribbean origins

The grown-ups can act out characters too - Big Chris is Roary's engineer and so is good for a dad. Mums can be Marsha the race administrator. Some sort of overall costume is just the job.

Games are pretty easy, especially if you're outdoors. Equip yourself with a chequered flag and see if you can borrow some traffic cones, and you can have the children running in laps all day. If you're inside you can have a pass-the-parcel - try our racing car chocolates as intermediate prizes, and the pull-back racing car at the end.

Scooby Doo Party

Scooby Doo, Where are You! Scooby is a perennial favourite at Party Ark and is always a favourite party theme for both boys and girls. The design is, we think, very strong too. We particularly like the giant Scooby foil balloon.

Since you've probably forgotten (!) the key characters in Scooby Doo are Scooby, his sidekick Shaggy, the singularly astute Velma, and Fred and Velma who spent most of each episode conveniently out of shot. We suggest an adult plays the part of the villain (usually a ghost) who is always unmasked by the kids.

Our Scooby inivtations come in packs of twenty so you'll probably need just one or two packs. For decoration, the Scooby Doo banner is 2.3 metres long (a little taller than a door), and the Confetti works really well as a cost-effective way of decorating your table.

Four your Scooby party you could try making some sort of Scooby Snacks for eating - you could make bone-shaped biscuits. But normal biscuits are fine. You could also put the Scooby Snacks in a pinata for the party crescendo. Or, you could have a 'hunt the Scooby Snack' game.

At going home time there's a Scooby loot bag. You'll probably want to put in a Scooby Snack biscuit or piece of cake. If you'd like more ideas, please look at our party gifts for boys page.

However, the less said about Scrappy-Doo the better. And we suggest you don't paint your car like the Mystery Inc. van.

Sesame Street Party

Sleepover Party Party

Speedracer Party

Spiderman 3 Party

Sponge Bob Party

Spongebob Squarepants Party

Superman Returns Party

Sweet Sixteen Sparkle Party

The Simpsons Party

Thomas & Friends Party

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight... Thomas is one of our permanent fixtures at Party Ark and has been a children's favourite since 1945. It's a strong, bold design with good accessories. The Thomas foil balloon in the shape of Thomas himself makes a great impact at a party.

You'll want to know who's who (if you don't already) - knowing the names and numbers can be really fun if each child is a character. In our experience girls don't mind being boys, but you'll have tears if you tell some poor chap he's got to be Clarabel. Anyway, they are:

Thomas the Tank Engine
Edward the Blue Engine
Henry the Green Engine
Gordon the Big Engine
James the Red Engine
Percy the Small Engine
Toby the Tram Engine
Duck the Great Western Engine
Donald and...
Douglas the Twins.

If you still need names, there are Bill and Ben (little yellow engines), Annie and Clarabel (Thomas' coaches), Henrietta (Toby's coach), Terence the Tractor, Bertie the Bus and Trevor the Traction Engine. Thomas Invitations gererously come in packs of twenty.

Parents should be, of course, the Fat and Thin Controller - we'll leave you to decide who is whom!

Here are some more ideas: It's fun to involve your child before the party, and paint a 'Welcome to [Jack's] Train Station' sign in the style of a train station sign. When the children arrive, give them each a ticket - they can use the tickets to be 'admitted' to any of your party games. If you haven't got too many children attending, give them each a big Number sticker or cutout too so they know which train they are. The birthday boy or girl should always be Thomas, no. 1.

A really good game is 'Hot Thomas' for which you'll need a fairly robust Thomas toy. All you do is play some music (you could use the Thomas theme unless it drives you mad) and ask the children to pass Thomas around. Whoever's holding Thomas when the music stops is out. Much frantic activity and excitement will follow! For a more conventional pass-the-parcel game, you could try our Thomas Parcel Kit.

For food you could try making biscuits in the shape of trains. Or, if you're really getting into the train theme, really rubbish sandwiches! (not really...)

You can't really go wrong with a Thomas party - everyone loves Thomas, both boys and girls. At going home time, our train magnet makes a lovely present.

Tigger Party

Time for Tea Party

Tiny Blessing Blue Party

Tiny Blessing Pink Party

Tom & Jerry Party

Two By Two Party

Under Construction Party

Underwater Friends Party

Wild Horses Party

Wild Kingdom Party

Winnie & Friends Party

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