Tuesday 22 May 2007

11 Million birthdays

We have 11 million children in the UK. All of them have Birthdays. Probably half of them have Birthday Parties. Frog in the Field has been set up to help the parents of these 5.5 million children to cope with the undeniable stress that a Birthday Party can cause.

We always seem to think about this time of year as the start of the party season. In reality there are Birthdays every day, so how do we make them different and special for our children? In Monmouthshire alone there is a wealth of professional companies ready to assist with your party plans. Caroline Davies founded Frog in the Field a year ago with her mission being to revolutionise the party bag. She works from the family farm in Newcastle, just outside Monmouth.

“I wanted to make a difference, only last month, my children came home from a party with a plastic bag full of sweets. This is everything I’m against. It’s so nice to give children a bag of quality gifts that they will treasure and re-use time and again.”

Frog in the Field has an easy to use e-commerce website (www.froginthefield.co.uk) with recommendations for age suitability and always a few special offers. While we do have an exclusive Limited Edition Prestige Range, we offer very competitive prices on our standard Party Bag range and cater for every budget and taste. With prices for complete pre-filled party bags from just £2.95 there has to be something for everybody.

We have customers from Edinburgh to St. Albans and get some weird and wonderful enquiries. The largest party bag order was for 52 guests at a 2nd Birthday Party and we’ve recently quoted for 50,000 party bags for a chain of restaurants based around London.
Customers often give us feedback, our favourite is from Mrs Parker of Kent: “Thank you so much! Am so pleased I took your advice! Will be back for my sons bday in sept – guaranteed!”

Where did our name come from? Some years ago our family were playing ‘I spy’ in the car. My daughter Jasmine was too young to know her alphabet, and shouted out ‘frog in the field!’ before bursting into giggles. We all laughed so much she would say it every time we played the game. When setting up my party bag business I wanted to think up a really quirky name and my husband said ” that’s easy, it has to be Frog in the Field.”

For a limited time only Frog in the Field is offering free delivery of party bags to all NP25 postcodes. This offer ends on 30th June 2007.

Frog in the Field have a Birthday Club on their website. Sign up and your children will receive a free electronic greetings card on their birthday!
www.froginthefield.co.uk
Tel: 08451 702010

Other companies we are delighted to be associated with are:

Ayres and Graces supply beautiful hand-made party invitations. Shirley Ayres also puts together bespoke memory albums perfect for Birthday, Christenings and Weddings.

Twins Things supplies all sorts of fabulous gifts and functional items for parents and grandparents of twins, and of course gifts for the little ones themselves.

Tick Tock put on a terrific hour of entertainment for pre-school children at Drybridge House each week, on Wednesdays at 11.15am. The children love it, the parents adore it.

Flora Fairies is a fabulous new business founded by Andrea Jones. She has negotiated a fantastic arrangement with Usk Castle so your little ones can have a fairy party in the castle. She will also come to your chosen venue if you prefer.

Monday 21 May 2007

Spring Party Season

Parties are being planned left right and centre at the moment. Parents are thinking well ahead for their children's birthdays and I wonder how they can possibly be so well organised?

I recently read that the annual spend on children was £119 million last year or was it billions? Whatever, it's a whopping amount of money. Although I feel like most of that is spent by us on school fees I wonder what people are buying children? How do people get the time to go shopping with their children?( I can rarely find a pair of socks for them that would be suitable enough to be seen in public...oh, they're all clean, don't get me wrong, but finding them, that's a skill I don't have)

But of course the internet opens up a whole new world. Marks and Spencers is no longer 45 minutes away from our house, just one click and new knickers arrive the next day, it's truly remarkable.

I did think most of my business would come from the internet, but it seems that so many mum's just don't even have time to go online anymore. They manage to get everything perfectly planned in their minds and make the phone calls to organise it in between all the motherly duties! I have had phone calls at 9pm on a Saturday night and even on a Sunday at Lunchtime. Rarely will a customer manage to phone me without their child chatting away in the background. Our children drive us to distraction and give us no free time, yet we indulge every whim we can for them and spend oodles of cash in the blink of an eye.

Outrageous party I've heard of this month?

It all started at Cadbury's Chocolate World in the Midlands, followed by tea at Pizza Hut. A sleepover followed the pizza. In the morning it was MacDonalds for breakfast and a trip to the cinema!! What will happen next year for the 10th Birthday Party I wonder?