Kids love dressing up, as opposed to getting dressed, and organising an outdoor fancy dress party is the best way we know to bring a little happiness to your kidlets on a day when they are bored and listless.  Here are the AbFab.co.uk top tips for a stellar summer fancy dress party:

Fancy dress theme for kids - we favour either ‘animal antics’ or ‘summer fun’ as themes, because they both allow you to set up some fun games to keep the children happy. For animal antics you can organise races … with the key feature being that the child has to complete the race in the style of their animal, so rabbits must hop, those in cat costume must arch their backs and dogs have to chase a ball, etc! Great fun to take part in and wonderful to video for happy memories in the year’s ahead.

Food can be another great party game, where each child is given a plate of jelly or ice-cream and the first one to eat it all in the style of their animal costume wins a prize. Watching a couple of fancy dress penguins trying to peck up jelly is a treat in itself!

You can also play ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’ with each child making the noise of its costume animal

A tiger striped or pig shaped cake is a great way to end your party and goodie bag gifts can be animal themed too.