Birthday Party in a box

Box ready for brown paper wrapping & note to Bro-in-law

In the last few months both my wonderful Better Half and my brother in-law have celebrated the big (to me) 30! While my man was able to take the day off, my fab soldier Bro-in-law was busy at work on a tour of duty.

Being a big kid at heart I decided to make & send him a 'Birthday Party in a Box': trying to include all the classics from childhood parties, I thought it would be a fun way to celebrate with some friends out there. In the end it took 3 boxes and a silly pressie wrapped separately.

I thought I'd share with you my silly idea, what was included and how I did it.

Box  Contents:
Party hats for everyone + a Pirate Captain's hat for the special boy
Pirate cups, napkins, Balloons & loot bags
Jelly (ready made in pots)
Crisps, Sugary biscuits & savoury snacks
Prizes for pass the parcel
Pin the tail on the Donkey
Bubbles & noise makers
Pepperami (instead of mini sausages)
30 birthday cake & candles in the shape of numbers '3'&'0'









Goodie bag contents: 
Keeping in mind that these are going to a) grown men and b) men who are doing a job in a difficult circumstances, their loot bags contained:
Hot chocolate
Cup-a-soup (white packet)
Spinner & noise maker
Pen
Sweets
Pepperami

Pass the Parcel
A Party must have! I chose some water balls (they soak up water for fights) and classic mini bags of Haribo for between the layers.
There was enough layers for each of the 8 players to get a go and then the prize in the centre. Each layer was different to the one before to prevent the lads getting confused.



Packing the Boxes:
To qualify for the free post to BFPO addresses the boxes can't be any bigger that a shoe box & have a max weight of 2kg. So my first task was to locate the boxes, I had 1 shoe box lying around and then discovered that (Diet) Coke x12 boxes would be about the right size.

I tried to 'theme' each box: The shoe box had all the elements that make it a party, the hats, goodie bags, pin the tail on the donkey and the cake & cables etc....
Box 2 was filled with food, the snacks, jellies etc
and Box 3 had the pass-the-parcel and crisps.

After I had stuffed them came the tricky part - securing the boxes so everything stayed inside, I used an entire role of clear parcel tape to secure the boxes.

Covered in tape

Box 3 ready to go

Box 3 wrapped

 

Then I wrapped them in party paper, labelled them asking that they are opened at the same time (BiL has habit of just opening things as soon as he gets them), added a note to box 1, wrapped them in brown parcel paper, labelled them & filled in a customs sticker.
Thankfully each box was under the 2kg! (yes I weighed them!)


Last touch & Posting
Finally: We have a tradition in our family that you should always have something to open on 'the day',we had also contributed to an ipad, so we sent him his card & a mini-cricket set as his present (odd shaped item on the top of the right).

My better half had to take the boxes with him to work as I don't have a car. But he did report that he sent them safely and with 10days to get to the birthday boy.

I just hope he enjoyed the party!!!

TTFN ~ xxx