Charlie & Lola Party -6yr- Giant Décor Banner

For my daughter's 6th birthday we decided to do a party based on her favorite books and television series, Charlie and Lola."  This party was so much fun to plan I lost sleep at night because I was so excited about it all! 

For the decorations and hung a really huge banner.  I copied about 30 of them and taped them back to back so that each side of the banner looked nice.  That alone had so much color and was so festive it probably would have been enough on its own!  We did however embellish the décor with various colored balloons and streamers.   

For the table setting I used an aqua blue table cloth pink plates and apple green napkins.  I used white paper cups and decorated them with different colors of tissue paper cut into butterfly shapes since Lola completely loves butterflies!  Then the centerpiece was a large bright  orange tray piled high with all different kinds of cookies (or "biscuits" as Lola would say). 

I found some really great little cookies at IKEA jam filled flower shaped etc.  It looked like a tray of cookies that you would see Charlie and Lola eating in the books!  So we had "biscuits" instead of cake and to top it off we had pink milk of course!!  (And also curly straws for drinking it.) 

I bought the "Charlie and Lola" music CD from  Amazon.com and I  played that throughout the party.  That really added to the party atmosphere. We started out the party by giving everyone a Charlie and Lola coloring page and a big bowl of crayons.  I just printed the coloring page off the Playhouse Disney website. 

There are other cute things you can print off at www.cbeebies.com as well (that's the British BBC for kids website).   I made a big poster with Sizzles the dog on it for a game.  He is standing in the grass with lots of little flowers  and butterflies fluttering around him.  My kids helped draw and cut out different things for each kid to "pin" on Sizzles (hair clips ribbons chef hat knit hat flowers etc.).  It really was cute! 

I wish I could post the photos here!  Before the party I photocopied about 100 little pictures of Soren Lorensen (Lola's imaginary friend)  from one of the books and hid them all over the place.  So the kids played "Find Soren Lorensen" which was a blast since there were Soren Lorensens inside cupboards up on mirrors and even on Grandpa's back!   

We did a butterfly craft where each child picked out which color of cardstock to begin with.  They each cut out a butterfly and then decorated it with tissue paper pom poms pipe cleaner antennae and googly eyes.    While the kids ate their biscuits and pink milk I read a Charlie and Lola book to them ("We Honestly Can Look After Your Dog").

Then handed out the goody bags.  The cello bags had butterflies printed on them of course!   Inside were beetle bug and butterfly finger puppets party horns lollipops ladybug stickers and magnifying glasses for examining all those beetles bugs and butterflies!  We also popped in a "Charlie and Lola" dvd at the end of the party. 

This was such a fun party for both the girls and the boys. I've decided I'm going to do this party again when my other little girl turns 3 this winter and maybe even again when she turns 4!  There are so many fun ideas you can do with "Charlie and Lola" you could play a dress up game eat ocean nibbles cloud fluff green drops and moonsquirters (fish fingers mashed potatoes peas and tomatoes) re-create the "most wonderfullest picnic ever" etc.  The list goes on. 

I think I'm going to have fun with several Charlie and Lola parties over the upcoming years!  (Also just a note there are official Charlie and Lola party supplies available.  However I could only locate them online from the UK.  They are really adorable I just was worried they wouldn't arrive in time for the party!  So maybe next  time I will order some things.  But you really can get creative and make your own decorations like I did and spend your money on fun birthday gifts instead!)  "