Woodland Friends Birthday Party

We had a very busy, but fun time this past weekend. It was Henry's 2nd Birthday!!! The grandparents all came into town, along with Aunt Kristi and Uncle Austin. And, of course, lots of local friends (of the big and small variety). The party this year was at Irvine Nature Center in Reisterstown. The facility is new and the building, and site, were designed to be very environmentally friendly.  The room where the party was held is one of their preschool rooms, which is the perfect location for a party for a bunch of little kids. The Woodland Friends theme I chose coordinated both with the activities that were planned during the party (by the nature center staff), and then I tried to go with colors that didn't compete with the pretty busy preschool room. I think it turned out pretty well, given that I'd only seen the room once before. Maybe I have one of those color reading chips in one of my eyeballs. That would be AWESOME! And I wouldn't need the app for my phone. If you're interested in using the invitation or some of the printable decorations for a shower you're hosting, please visit my Etsy shop . I will be very happy to work with you to customize colors and text!

I blogged about the centerpieces last week. I used a variety of animals such as birds, bunnies, hedgehogs, and owls.

I also blogged last week about my technique for making this garland. I really love this garland. Probably more than a normal person should love a bunch of crepe paper knotted up on twine. I should string it from the ceilings in my house.

I tried to keep the food fairly simple, since the children never really eat anything but the cake or cupcakes anyway. The food really served as snacks for the adults who were trapped enjoying the party. My friend Julie made Buffalo Chicken Dip. Perhaps she should post the recipe on her blog so I can post the link to it? Yes? I made a BLT pasta salad, which was really delicious. I had to have bacon somewhere on the menu and I couldn't really find a way to fit bacon jam into the mix so this was the next best thing. I used this recipe (originally found on Pinterest) and my only alteration was that instead of fresh thyme I just used some italian seasoning I had in my spice collection and I didn't serve it over bib lettuce (would have done that if the party had been at my house but I figured the lettuce would be very wilted if I included it as suggested in the recipe. I had my mom make sausage balls, which are the standard old-school southern party staple. I also had my mom make her cream cheese brownies were are too ridiculous for words. I know I'll have requests for that recipe so once I get it I'll post it. I made the sweet potato brownies from Bake It Pretty. They are the perfect fall dessert! And of course, really cute cupcakes from a local supermarket, Graul's.

I made really quick and simple favors for the children at Henry's party. I bought little sticker books from the Irvine Nature Center gift shop, found small magnifying glasses at Michael's Crafts, and then threw in a few packs of gummy bears (I found these small packs in a HUGE bag at World Market). I wrapped it all up in a bandana (you can find at most craft stores and even the $1 store).

We had a fantastic member of the Irvine Nature Center staff lead the kids through story time. Each of the children also had the opportunity to pet a turtle, a hedgehog, and an owl.

The birthday boy!!! He was very excited about his raccoon shirt (mostly because he liked to say "raccoon")

Henry running around in circles, apparently for the entertainment of the other kids.

Me and my birthday boy.

Sometimes he's a little goofball.

After reading a story and torturing petting the animals, all the kids went outside for a bug hunt. I do not believe any insects or worms were injured. Henry's pants did sustain some serious mud injuries from him running around like a wild man.

Back to the party for cake and gifts. Henry LOVES him some "cakey" (as he calls it). I wasn't thinking and didn't attempt to hide the cupcakes (all 35 of them) when I brought them home on Friday night. So he had one for dinner that night and he spotted them the minute he arrived at the party.

Henry and other children pretending to eat food that isn't cake.

He finally got to eat his cupcake! 

Henry got lots of really fun toys and he has been in toy heaven all weekend!

 Irvine Nature Center has a really nice natural playground on-site. After the party the kids had a great time climbing around on the logs and hollowed out trees.

Henry had a great time and managed to survive the day with his sanity intact despite only having a 30 minute nap in lieu of his usual 3 hour nap. I guess it's time to start planning his 3rd birthday party!!!!

Whoooooo?

So, I'm starting to get a little crafty in preparation for my little boy's upcoming birthday party. The party is at a nature center with a "forest friends" theme. I pulled together projects from a baby shower I put together at work and another baby shower a few years go to come up with this cute centerpiece.

Whooo's the cutest centerpiece in all the land????

So here is how I made the centerpieces. First you make the tree cake stands. Like I mentioned, I had them from a previous shower and a friend's husband put them together for us. Here is the original tutorial. You can buy the tops at Michael's in two different sizes (we used the smaller size) and then just cut the bases out of a fallen tree trunk.

For the animals, I purchased this set of graphics from MyGrafico two years ago. I don't think they have this exact set any longer but there are other similar ones on the site. I just create a Photoshop document and place the images of the animals on the page. I like to have the animal visible on both sides so I print out two of each, one being a mirror image, on white cardstock. If you're interested in using the invitation or some of the printable decorations for a shower you're hosting, please visit my Etsy shop . I will be very happy to work with you to customize colors and text!

The other materials I used are floral stem wire, faux moss rocks (which I found at the Dollar Tree!!), and cake circles (which are in the cake decorating section of the craft store). I originally bought the 6 inch cake circles, as shown in the photo below, but I exchanged them for the 12 inch circles after I decided I needed a larger platform for my centerpiece.

Along with the cake circles, you will need decorative paper. I used scrapbook paper (because that's what I always use and it's 12 inches square!). I knew I needed to make six centerpieces, so I pulled out six of the cake circles, traced them onto the green paper, cut the circles out, and then hot glued the paper circles to cover the cake circles.

So back to the animals...what you're trying to accomplish is just the printed animal standing up on its own with wire "legs". I am sure there are many ways to achieve this, but this is how I do it.

I take one of the wire stems and cut it in half with my wire cutters. Then I bend the stem piece in half again so that when laid on one half of the animal it lines up with its feet (see below on the hedgehog).

Once I get it aligned, I just put a dab of hot glue on the back side of the hedgehog and set the wire in place. After a few seconds, I put some glue all over the backside of the hedgehog and then place the second cut-out of the animal on top. Gluing the two together and sandwiching the wire "legs" in the middle.

Sexy wire hedgehog legs!

And then you're done. I have six of these tree stands and used six different animals from the MyGrafico set: an owl, hedgehog, birds, bunny. I bend the legs out from the bottom of the animal and then bend those pieces at a right angle, like this:

Then using a little piece of masking tape (since it happens to be the same color as the wood on the stands, I just tape down each of the wire "legs" and I'm done! I added a few pine cones and some of the moss covered rocks (you can just glue or tape them down) and it's done!

Woodland Friends Party Invitations

Just a little preview of the invitations for Henry's upcoming birthday party. Interwebs, I tried SOOO hard to get a good shot of these invitations. The weather wouldn't cooperate for shooting outdoors. The lighting wouldn't cooperate indoors. I was obsessed AND possessed (as I tend to get), so here they are anyway. I created the three sheet invitations (there was a fourth sheet but due to budget constraints I had to reign this project in a bit) in Photoshop using backgrounds and elements I purchased at MyGrafico.

If you're interested in using the invitation or some of the printable decorations for a shower you're hosting, please visit my Etsy shop . I will be very happy to work with you to customize colors and text!

I think it's going to turn out to be a really cute party at Irvine Nature Center. I'm using a bold, modern take on your usual primary colors and incorporating cute woodland friends like owls, hedgehogs, deer, and birds. Maybe a fox and squirrel too! I would like to give a shout out to Alpha Graphics, Inc. in Hampden for doing a great job on printing! They were very responsive and helpful over email (since I work too far away to be able to run over to check the test prints). I'll definitely be using them in the future.

Here is the mood board I created to get a few ideas going for decorations and favors. Unfortunately, the room itself isn't very lovely. It's in the basement and looks very middle school-science classroom, so decorating is going to be challenging to say the least. How to decorate a classroom without showing up the day before to repaint, clean, and install new lighting? I'm going to have to control myself.