Jungle Safari Party

Our son wanted a jungle party so we set out to make that happen. This was a lot of fun to put together. There is so much available and so many fun food ideas to incorporate.

We hung streamers around the room like jungle vines. One of our older sons did most of the decorating and had a lot of fun doing that for his younger brother. We made trees out of brown wrapping paper by crumpling it up and stapling it to the walls. leaves were made of construction paper.

I bought a set of animal face masks and tails. Each child picked what animal they wanted to be and we clipped the tails on their clothes. We also bought toy binoculars for animal sightings.

We had plastic animals around and snakes in the trees.  We served lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and animal crackers.

We kept the cake very simple and plastic animals on top. but inside the cake was made to look like zebra stripes. that is done by alternating spoons of white cake mix batter with chocolate cake mix batter in the pan before baking.

The kids went on a safari hunt and played with the binoculars and face masks. We had some activities for them but they mostly had fun with playing safari hunts on their own.

We had a cardboard safari car that they colored and then put together to play in as well. that was a lot of fun too.

For the meal we made a snake out of sub sandwiches and we had a veggie tray made to look like a lion. Both were big hits with the kids.

Jungle juice served in monkey faced bottles with snake straws.

And then the biggest hit of the party was the chocolate fountain. We called it the mud bath and the kids all loved dipping their  fruit in the chocolate.

The party was a lot of fun and great memories.

60's Style Birthday

Since I was born in the 60's, my husband planned a 60's theme party for my 50th birthday. We had so much fun and it turned out great.

In preparation, we of course had to make some tie dye shirts. We did this outside and everyone loved the activity and the end results.

We also tie dyed a canvas drop cloth to use as a backdrop for pictures and hung beads in the door ways. Everyone came dressed in 1960's theme clothes and the costumes were so much fun to see.

We hung fabric from the ceiling and paper lantern lights. We put black light bulbs in the lamps and used lots of beads and flowers for decorations.

We used tie dye designed paper plates and had lots of pin on buttons and beads and rings for favors.

We had hippie names printed on card stock and each person drew out a name to use for the evening. Mine was Moon Flower.

It was so much fun and I was tempted to keep up the decorations after the party. I think this is my favorite party theme to date and we cant wait for another excuse to have it again.

Cars

Our son wanted a cars theme party for his 8th birthday. We bought some of the decorations from a party store and made others. I used a black plastic table cloth on the table and white duct tape to make a road. We used checkered flags and orange cones down the center to add to the theme.

We stacked chocolate donuts to look like piles of Luigi's tires.

The main cakes were actually cupcakes decorated to look like Mater from the movie Cars. I made the cakes in regular muffin tins and also in mini muffin tins. Frost one regular size cup cake with chocolate frosting to be the main body. Frost one mini cup cake to be the bed of the truck and one mini cupcake turned upside down on top of the regular cupcake to be the top of the truck. We used m&ms for the lights and eyes and white gum squares for the teeth. The tires on the truck were Junior Mints. We tried various different chocolate cookies and candies to find the ones that looked like the best size for our cupcakes. We frosted the windshield with white frosting and added eyes. It was hard to get the frosting smooth but the boys loved the shape and eating them.

We used car theme stickers for an activity inside before going outside for the race activity.

We set up a race track outside and each child had a cardboard box that we spray painted to look like a car. We put black paper plates on the sides for tires and printed out faces for the front. We had a few races and prizes for the winners and then the boys just played with the cars and had a lot of fun just running around with them.

The party was a lot of fun and our son loved it.