I have a little more than a month until Miss O’s big 5th birthday party and I am in full party planning mode – working on her party as well as helping my friend with her son’s 5th birthday party! All the fun projects are coming soon to the blog, but first lets look back at Miss O’s 3rd birthday party!
For my little animal lover’s 3rd birthday we had an animal themed party! I had so much fun planning this one and it was such a good time. My party planning skills were improving but my photography of the final setup was still lacking back then. I pulled the best pictures to give you a feel for the party!
I found this awesome design for a party invite by Proffitt Productions via Etsy. The original design was in different colors, so I worked with the designer to completely re-do the colors to match fabric that I was using as my décor inspiration. I LOVE how it all came out! She blew out the invite design into all of the other party décor – banner, favor tags, thank you cards, cupcake circles, food tents, etc. I really fell in love with party printables after this party.
To add to the printable décor, I cut out animal shapes on my Silhouette SD in animal print paper, laminated them and glued then to popsicle sticks. The laminated animals stood up in either a jar with animal cookies in it (strictly for décor) or a zebra print bucket. They decorated the tables on a square of my inspiration animal print fabric.
Here is a close up of one. The party was at a local park under a large shelter, so I put plastic tablecloths on the picnic tables in the party colors – pink, purple and green.
I hung the printable banner above the dessert table and made tissue paper pom poms to hang all around the shelter. It felt very festive.
For lunch, we served Snake sub sandwiches (store bought subs decorated with olive eyes and red pepper tongues).
Animal shaped Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches for the little ones. And an assortment of fruit, veggies, chips and salads.
Oh and can’t forget the Zebra cakes and Baboon Butter!
Instead of birthday cake, I made animal cupcakes! Flamingos, Hippos and Crocodiles! I found these cute cupcakes in the book What’s New, Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. This book and the original, Hello Cupcake! are full of amazing cupcake designs that are actually doable – the books give you step by step instructions to make super cute and impressive cupcakes!
The art activity was decorating your own animal mask. I printed and cut out a variety of animals masks from a huge collection I purchased from Masketeers. I glued them to popsicle sticks and let the kids – color, glue feathers, jewels, stickers, etc. to decorate them. It was a fun activity!
My nephew made a pretty awesome Kitty mask! But the biggest hit of the party were the live animals that came to visit!
Like I mentioned before O is a huge animal lover, and at her toddler class a woman brought in some live animals for the kids to meet. I knew it would be perfect for O’s party, so I booked them! They brought bunnies, a hedgehog, snakes, a skink lizard (pictured with O above) and even a wallaby!
Here is my sweet family posing with the baby Wallaby! So much fun!
The kiddos all went home with this cute tote full of animal themed treasures. I made the totes from a paint drop cloth. I appliqued an animal shape on each and lined it with the inspiration fabric. I can’t remember exactly what was in them, but they were a hit.
And I can’t forget to brag about Miss O’s birthday dress! I used The Cottage Mama’s Janey Jumper pattern to make her this cute animal jumper. The fabric is from Alexander Henry and has awesome colorful animal illustrations. I knew it would be perfect for O! I think she liked the animal head buttons done the front the most. I also made her the animal bead necklace to go with her dress.
We all had a blast at this party and the birthday girl was happy, which is all Mommy wants! Thanks for letting me share O’s 3rd birthday party. Now to get back to her 5th birthday projects! Throughout this month I will be sharing projects I am working on for O’s princess themed party as well as my friend’s son’s Lego Star Wars party – fun stuff ahead!