Oh the Sound of Music (sigh). Oh Maria (double sigh).

When my little lady was turning 7, we started chatting about party themes and the Sound of Music came up (be still my beating heart).  She pretty quickly agreed that it would be a good theme (I'm so glad she chose it then as I think there was only a small window in time that this would suit her and I snapped it up toot-sweet).  And I knew from previous parties that were based around my favourite movies that it would be an absolute delight for me!

But whilst The Sound of Music is a beautiful movie with wonderful music, I didn't know how it would translate to a party for little ladies!  I wanted to come up with something that was more than just pretty decorations and themed food.  When I searched online I found a lot of Sound of Music parties but they didn’t seem to cater for 7 year old girls who needed to be entertained.  And they also looked very expensive – elaborate decorations, matching straw hats for every girl - and I"m always conscious to work within a budget whilst trying to make a lot of the items myself.  (So far my craft skills haven't extended to making straw hats.  Damn).

We held a craft based party for Amelie the year before which the girls really loved, so I started thinking about how to incorporate craft into the movie theme. Around the same time that we were planning Amelie’s party, my mum, Amelie and I were all going to see The Sound of Music stage show in Melbourne (Have you seen that!?!  Amazing! That opening scene where the nuns walk through the theatre!!)

So – thinking about the music from the movie, the stage show and the girls love of craft and after many Pinterest (or Pin-interest according to my sister) searches and chats with Amelie about different ideas ,we came up with a little party theme we like to call “Amelie’s Sing-a-Long Sound of Music party” 

(#YouAreWelcome).

I wasn’t sure how many of the little ladies knew The Sound of Music so I wanted the theme to ignite their (potential) love for the songs.  I had visions of my sisters and I singing the songs in rounds on long car trips as kids (Did anyone else sing in rounds?  Try it as an adult - gee whiz - that is complicated business!) and I was sure that 2 hours at a birthday party could surely impart the same interest in Amelie's friends. (Surely?)  I thought the best way to do this was to let them become familiar with the characters and the songs via a craft activity – decorating theatre boxes.  

This is how it happened…

One of my favourite parts of party planning is all the wonderful online window shopping I get to do in the lead up.  (Let's take a moment to remember all those items that are added to cart and never purchased)! Generally I come up with an idea, look for the items that I'd need, realise it's too expensive and then go on an endless quest to work out how to create the same effect for quarter of the price.  Good times! 

 

For the theatre boxes I knew I needed cardboard boxes, figurines and decorations.   

 

The previous year, for Amelie's craft party, I had spent many hours sourcing empty shoe boxes for the activity, which caused me no end of grief.  So - this time around, I decided to purchase a set of craft boxes that were all the same size and colour - this would be quicker and simpler.  I found the perfect boxes on ebay (like these) and they were quite cheap.

 

The figurines were a bit harder.  I loved the idea of peg dolls but gee whiz those things are price-ey.  Especially if you want to create figurines for all the von Trapp children plus some!  After much searching, I managed to find some for a good price.  You can buy similar here.  And - I decided that a full von Trapp family of figures was a bit too much, so settled for 4 figurines per theatre box (the Captain, Maria as a nun, Maria as the governess and Liesl). That'll do pig, that'll do!

 

Once these items arrived, I was able to start playing around with how the theatre boxes could be decorated and how the party might work. Craft parties are a fine line between allowing the kids to be creative and ensuring things don't go cray-cray-loopy-loco.  After a bit of playing around, I figured out that I could pre-cut the theatre boxes, add the curtain (red velvet material from Spotlight if you hardly even mind) and draw the outline on the peg dolls.  This would leave the little ladies to paint the peg dolls, create clothing for them and decorate the theatre boxes.  P-L-E-N-T-Y to fit into the 2 hours.

One of my favourite parts of the movie is when Maria makes the children's clothes out of the curtains and I was keen to incorporate this into the party somehow. At one point (probably whilst strolling around Spotlight wishing I could sew) I found the most divine material that would make perfect curtain/clothes.  I loved the idea of bunting made into the outline of clothes (Bunting! Who is this magical person who invented bunting??? Praise their very being!).  I also wanted little pieces of material that the girls could cut out to dress their peg dolls.  And then I had the most magnificent idea (if I do say so myself) that I could set the material up as curtains and the girls could CUT. IT. OUT. THEMSELVES!  Bloody stop it!!  Golly gosh I was excited. (Oprah - where are you?  This is where you should be celebrating again!) 

The rest of the decorations and craft items were pretty simple.  I bought a heap of water colour paint sets for each girl to decorate their peg dolls, had plenty of glue and material on hand for them to create the clothes and used other items I already had around the house for decorations (like a guitar or suitcase).  I loved the simplicity of the decorations and colours.  I made two sets of the clothes bunting (I cut the outline out of cardboard and then glued the material onto it) and set up mock curtains over a wall in our lounge.

To compliment the theatre boxes, I printed out key scenes from the movie and laminated them.  These would become background scenes in the theatre.  I also created a song book, which had the complimentary photos for each scene to match the lyrics.  The girls could then swap the scenes around and sing the songs as they liked.  (Daily, heavens - hourly - if I had my way!).

So - baking isn't my strength.  In fact, I've been oh-so-lucky to have a sister who is a magnificent cake decorator who has helped me out in the past, usually if I've got a newborn or other distractions.  But unfortunately times arise where I can't acceptably call on her, so I have to make the cake myself.

And whilst I had trouble working out how to fashion a Sound of Music themed party, imagine the challenges I had in coming up with an appropriate cake!  I was pretty happy with the end result. The bottom part is just two cakes iced with green icing and covered in fabric flowers (from Spotlight again.  Where else).  For 'Maria' I 'acquired' one of Amelie's barbies and gave her a hair cut.  I purchased a barbie sized guitar online to accessorise Maria (search for a 1:6 scale guitar on ebay).  The hardest part was the skirt.  I don't decorate with fondant icing, but I knew it would look best for this cake so I watched a few Youtube tutorials (thank you world!) and it turned out OK.  The top part of her dress is just black ribbon wrapped around her bodice, and the white apron is material.  Done!

Well - what else could they be but brown paper packages tied up with string!  Super easy and looked divine.

So - on a beautiful sunny winters day in Ballarat (these are rare), a group of gorgeous 7 year old girls gathered around our lounge and completely immersed themselves in the task of making their own theatre boxes.  Considering some hadn't seen the movie before, it was surprising how quickly they became engrossed.  They loved painting their own figurines and were beside themselves with excitement at the idea of cutting up my curtains to make clothes.  It was so delicious.

And then the party ended - like a god damn scene out of a Walt Disney movie - with the girls asking to sing some of the songs.  While the winter sun sparkled through the windows on us all, we played each of the songs from the movie and the girls sang along with their song books.  I may or may not have felt like Maria for a moment in time.  It was heaven.  The end.

Amelie's costume was from ebay and Captain von Trapp was dressed in a boys suit that we had left over from a wedding.  Delicious. I purchased the apron online and added the flower garland at the last minute as they were left over from the flowers from the cake.

I hope that helps anyone who is planning a Sound of Music party.  Feel free to comment below if you have any questions.