Paper Bunting # 1 - Stars & Stripes

We made this on the weekend before the party, the children did most of the painting.  It made them feel included in the preparations and excited about their coming party.  The hardest thing about this bunting is that you need lots of clear surface areas for the flags to dry between application of each layer of paint.


We used good quality garden twine to hang the bunting and brown craft paper for the flags, it looks rustic and I think is more forgiving of a slightly more messy application of paint from 3 and 6 year old fingers.  To figure out how many flags you need to make I would suggest you need to leave  120cm (48in) of string at each end to tie the bunting off and 5 flags for every meter (40inches) of string.

To make the Stars and Stripes bunting you will need:

• paper*


• pencil


• ruler


• scissors


• red, white and blue paint


• star stickers - like the ones they used to use on your work at school


• hole punch


• string or ribbon

(*we used brown craft paper because I like the brown showing through the paint.  You could use white paper and then you don’t need white paint) 

1.  Cut your paper into rectangles approximately 16cm x 18cm

2.  With a pencil draw a smaller rectangle in the top right corner of approximately 6.5cm x 8cm, then draw 6 lines. OR if you are feeling brave just do this stage freehand in white paint, it really doesn’t matter if lines are a bit wobbly or paint is blobbed on irregularly.  If you are using white paper ignore this step and go straight onto step 3 



3.  When your white paint is dry put 7 star stickers onto the white square, then using red paint add 4 red lines.

4.  Once the red paint is dry, paint a blue rectangle over the top of the stars covering your white rectangle  (or if you have used white paper straight over your stars). Once the blue paint is dry peel off your stars.  Underneath will be the star shapes in white.

5.  Now place your flag portrait in front of you and make 2 holes about 1cm from the top on the 2 outer white lines. Thread your string through the holes until you have your bunting. A knot in the string every few flags will help it hang evenly.

We cut out stars in card, covered them in silver foil and strung these every three flags or so.

Don't underestimate how much the children can do to help.  And home-made decorations are much more charming than shop bought.  Just don’t try and make them perfect, the odd mistake or messy painting looks great.

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"The best Cowboy party ever!

“The best cowboy party ever...” Una May, 6 

Howdy there Cowboys and girls, what a great theme for a party this one was.   

For the invitation we created a “Wanted” poster featuring the children as outlaws from the wild, wild west.  Louis loved his 'tash!

When the guests arrived they "signed in" with a handprint on a totem pole that we had painted onto craftpaper and stuck up on the wall. In return they received a sherriffs badge sticker. And the fun began.

The local scout hut was decorated with a wild west backdrop painted onto a sheet, a wigwam, cardboard cacti, a cardboard box bank, with saloon doors, and an old tin bath full of sand for the guest to “pan for gold”.  This created an imaginative free play area for the children.  And when they found the gold nuggets in the sand they could exchange them at the bank for gold ingots of chocolate.  We had a “bank manager” to police the chocolate consumption.  He was very busy.

Strings of silver stars across the hall, chilli-pepper lights and stars and stripes bunting decorated the hall.  The table was laid out for tea in a wild west theme.  The tableware is available from our shop; checkered table cloth, plates, napkins and plain red cups.  And wonderful cardboard cowboy hats.  We also dressed the table with our Belle & Boo Treat Time Donkey and Cart and made cardboard cacti in mini terracotta pots with stars and stripes flags.  The food was kept simple; hot dogs, corn tortilla chips and pop corn, cherry toms, carrot sticks and cucumbers.

We made Native American headdresses before tea. And played party games afterwards.  For party games we played Pin the Tale on the Donkey, musical chairs and pass the parcel.  The prizes for the Pin the Tale game were Belle and Boo's cowboy badges, for the musical chairs it was a handmade hobby horse (details on how to make in a later post) and the pass the parcels were  wrapped in brown craft paper made to look like stetsons.

The children had a fine hoard to take home with them from the party; along with the Native American headdresses they had made, and the cowboy hats from the table, they received a party-bag created from a red or blue bandana tied with string and a thankyou tag.  Inside was a slice of birthday cake, a  chocolate half-dollar, cow and milky bar and a metal sheriff's badge.

If you'd like us to throw you a party like this one get in touch info@mrsfoxs.com

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And relax...

It has taken this long to recover, even for a professional like Mrs Fox!

A weekend of parties, two more to be delivered for this weekend, birthdays, book day, science week and Mother's Day in between have all kept me from updating our blog.

So, I thought it was only fair to make sure we really do our best to cover the fantastic Cowboy and Prehistoric Parties we have just thrown.

Over the next few days we have some great posts for you including:

The lowdown on "the best cowboy party ever"

Dinotastic Prehistoric Parties or how to throw a party for 21 six-year old boys with out losing your mind


How to make paper bunting.  (So, much easier than cloth bunting)


And remember Mrs Fox can run one of these parties for you, just get in touch info@mrsfoxs.com.  Or look out for the details of our new Cowboy and Prehistoric Party Boxes, that will allow you to run one of our parties yourselves.

So, stay tuned and please let us know what you think!

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