General Chat

Make a prickly caterpiller. Lie a cucumber on a plate, then stick pieces of cheese, mini sausages, pineapple, mini tomatoes and anything else they like on cocktail sticks into the cucumber. Use two tomatoes for the eyes. It looks great - you just need to check what they are doing with the cocktail sticks. Alternatively, give up on the laying the whole lot out and give each child an individual box, you can order them online, but also get them in some shops. You can put a couple of sandwiches, a handful of crisps, a few slices of apple etc in each box. My daughter loved this at her birthday. It made far less mess, the children actually ate the sandwiches and I wasn't so tempted to over cater. Ann

huge oblong pizza, half cheese and tom for the little ones and half garlic mushroom for the big kids!! Tastes yummy and easy to cook! Try searching Annabel Karmel on bbc, some great easy recipes.

Try this.... Get some square slices of ham and dairylea cheese spread, "butter" the ham with the cheese (just like making a sandwich) you can add two layers or more if you want, then roll the ham like a swiss roll and cut in to slices (like you would a swiss roll) and arrange on a plate, they look and taste great.

Take them to McDonalds LOL (do you get the hint that I'm NOT Nigella Lawson!!!).

Quite fiddly, but jelly boats always went down well at my kids parties. Halve oranges and squeeze out juice. Using a teaspoon, carefully remove the rest of the flesh, making sure you don't make any holes in the skin. Make up orange jelly using the fresh juice and pour into the orange halves. When set cut in each one in half and add a ricepaper sail held in place with a cocktail stick or a straw. I also used small biscuit cutters to make shaped sandwiches (Dad ate the crusts etc) and made 'one bite big cakes' in petit four/sweet paper cases, decorated with coloured icing and a smartie or chocolate button. Enjoy the party! Sue

Hollow out the biggest watermelon you can find and fill it with the juice from the pulp with other juices added to make a fairy cocktail. Serve it from the watermelon with a ladle into those plastic wine glasses with detachable bottoms. You can decorate these beforehand and put their names on if you like. Because my little ones cannot have refined sugar I get the biggest biscuit tin I can find and fill it to the top with whole strawberries, washed and hulled. Then I decorate the outside of the tin as a birthday cake, and put candles on the top which they blow out. They all have to shout abracadabra a few times until the spell works and the lid will come off. Then it is each man for himself with my children. I swear strawberries are the most valuable commodity in the world at our house! A lot of fun! Enjoy! Abigail

For the children:- Cubes of cheese, raisins, Party ring biscuits, fairy cakes, Popcorn ( unsalted), cocktail sausages, chicken nuggets, seedless grapes, mini swiss rolls cut in half (bitesize) mini breadsticks. garlic bread slices. For the adults:- southern fried chicken peices, flavoured rice (cold), pasta salad, salad, vegetarian quiche, sausage rolls/veg rolls,cheese n pinapple Mmmmm ! Elaine x

We have just had my Grandsons birthday, with friends, adults and Grandparents. Everybody had jelly, icecream, tiny sandwiches and all the things small children like and the adults went away saying it was the best kiddies party ever!

Magic Toadstools - makes 12. Hard boil 12 eggs, shell and dry. Trim base of each egg and stand, pointed end up. Trim a little from the top of each egg. Cut 6 firm tomatoes in half and fix each half on top of each egg with a little mayo or cream cheese. Pipe dots of mayo or cream cheese on top of the tomatoes. These look like little fairy houses and my lot used to love them.

satays on sticks kids and adults love them

What about some of those weeny iced biscuites,,,'Iced Gems' and of course some wine for the grown ups.

VEGGIES AND SALAD BITS CUT INTO STRIPS IE CARROTS AND A DIP, MY KIDS LOVED THAT LITTLE MINI SCOTCH EGGS, THE CHINESE PRAWN CRACKERS FAIRY CAKES COLD PIZZA SLICES SANDRA

Don't get the adult jelly mixed up with the kids stuff, Kylie!! 3yr olds are always sick at parties, as it is!

thats a good one yvette the jelly one could make vodka shots for the adults hehe

Don't forget the cherry tomatoes.....young children love them! Also the old favourite of Jelly, this can be jazzed up for the grown ups. Hope the party goes well Yvette

Kylie, for 3 yr olds, you can't go wrong with: mini sausages, pineapple chunks, cream cheese sandwiches, marmite (vegimite??) sandwiches, raisins, crisps and biscuits. For my daughters 3rd party, I got in touch with local supermarket that did 'grown-up' buffet platter, for the adults. Saved on time and effort!! Good luck & have fun! Steph

my youngest is 3 next monday (24th) and im having family and friends over on sunday anybody got any fun food ideas for kids to eat but adults will enjoy too(a strange one i know but aint got a clue im not doing a bbq always do that)