Go green with this 'hatke' birthday party!

Birthday boy Shlok with his mum, Saloney. (R) Shlok with elder sister, Sia

Shlok Saberhawal’s eighth birthday party was rocking. After all, his mum, Saloney Saberhawal had planned an unusually wonderful theme which had everyone talking about the party for weeks!

What’s more, she did not hire any party planner and managed the entire event on a modest budget. Here she speaks to us about how she managed it all so beautifully!

All themed up

Gardening sets, pots and tags waiting for the kids

The theme of the party was ‘Go Green’. The Saberhawals chose this theme from a huge list of birthday celebration ideas. They wanted to educate the kids how to protect and promote nature by planting and nurturing trees.

Saloney says, “We thought it is important to imbibe in them this thought at a young age. So gardening, it was!

Saplings, the star of the ‘Go Green’ theme

Click on Continue Reading to know details about the prep behind the great party!

Putting the party together

Tags for the saplings, made at home

The whole preparation took approximately a week. Since it was not a run-of-the-mill theme, Saloney and her family had to be creative, right from the invite to the cake. They actually sent out invites with a poem, via email and Whatsapp.

Preparing the table with the tools

“We then had to scout for all types of gardening material as planting the sapling was the star activity of the party. Simple games were planned in advance as well,” says Saloney. “We even made colourful, personalised paper tags with satin ribbons as sapling tags,” she adds.

Click on Continue Reading for colourful details on the decor!

Details on the decor

Colourful decorations!

The decor included paper danglers, multi-coloured polka balloons in the shades of yellow, blue and green. The colourful tags and gardening sets, marigold saplings in shades of orange and yellow contributed to the decor. They even had yellow, blue and red coloured chairs for the children.

“Since we organised the party in our front-yard, we ensured there is enough greenery to go with the theme,” reveals Saloney.

Balloons brighten up the house

Do you want to know more? Click on Continue Reading

Dressed… to have fun!

We love our plants!

Unlike most other birthday celebration ideas, here, as the theme involved working with water and mud in the outdoors, they’d kept the dress code casual so that the kids were comfortable with the activity.

Click on Continue reading for the most interesting details of the party!

Keeping busy

Kids experimenting with their green thumb!

The gardening activity was a great hit! “We had a designated area, gardener and assistance from the adults in the family to help children plant their saplings. The gardner explained  the process step by step to the kids and assisted them wherever they faltered,” said Saloney.

She adds, “We had arranged for plastic gloves to protect the kids’ hands while they worked in the mud. But, very few of them were used.”

Kids having a blast at the games

Besides having the sapling activity, the children had fun playing a few theme games like ‘Choose your own Corners’ (corners were names after trees), dancing on latest songs, start-stop games, and some team activity games.

Click on Continue Reading for yummy details

Party on my plate

The ‘Go Green’ birthday cake

The cake was a green Ferrero Rocher chocolate cake, with chocolate being the soil and the topping symbolising the grass growing on the soil.

The shape was thoughtfully chosen as a square, indicating a field. It had 8 sugar crafted stars. These shinning stars also indicated that because of all the greenery around, there was less pollution and one could see the stars shinning in the sky.

Scrumptious party food!

The menu included:

• Fusilli pasta in white sauce
• Garlic bread
• Mini homemade pizzas with toppings of corn, bell pepper and cheese,
• Chilli garlic noodles with veggies
• Chilled fresh fruit Kababs (watermelon, musk melon, grapes, sugar kissed candies, marshmallows)
• There were no fizzy drinks so we made two colourful mocktails, a Blue Lagoon and Orange Delight which were served in yellow and blue polka dotted glasses.

And what exactly was in the goodie bag? Click to find out

Return gifts

Tagged, planted and waiting to go home

“The main return gift was to take home your own sapling and see it grow by nurturing it. We also had a goodie bag which had all the small knick-knacks, a stationary kit with fancy erasers, cookies and chocolates,” states Saloney.

Delighted kids with their saplings

Sources

All the party material was sourced from Crawford market and the plants and soil came from the local nursery. Overall, they spent around ₹ 13,000 for the entire party.

We love your idea, Saloney, and that’s why, this has made it to our list of amazing birthday celebration ideas!

If you know any amazing birthday celebration ideas we could feature, drop us a comment in the box below!

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