Woodlands Birthday Party

I’ve been meaning to post Cooper’s Woodlands Birthday Party for about a million years but time got away from me. Can you believe that my baby is now 15 months old, soon to turn 16 months!?! Crazy. He’s only days away from the age Locky was when I had him. I look at Cooper and think, how did I have him when his big brother was still so small. To me Cooper is still such a little baby!

Anyway, enough about my reminiscing and more about the his Woodlands Birthday Party! If you haven’t read my blog for long or at all then you need to learn one fact about me. I get completely over excited about birthdays. I’m a bit of a birthday freak and start planning months ahead. Usually adults birthdays I’m not too fussed on but when it comes to kids parties I go nuts. For Locky’s second birthday we celebrated with a very cute and colourful Barnyard Birthday Party which was a total hit and I have to say the cake I made was also pretty amazing! I was proud. The flavour was just delicious and all of my guests enjoyed it so that’s a bonus considering it was the first cake I had ever made.

I chose a Woodlands Birthday Party theme for Cooper because for some reason I have a thing for forest creatures and woodlands theme. I decorated Locky’s nursery with a woodlands theme in mind. So you see, I love woodlands.

The day was quite miserable and there wasn’t much in the was of nice daylight. It was dark and gloomy so excuse the quality of the photos.

I made most of the items for the birthday myself because I tend to enjoy stressing myself over nothing rather than go out and buy what I need but when you have a vision sometimes you just got to do it yourself I think. Luckily my mum was here to help me with the boys and some of the craft projects in the lead up to the party.

I wanted to have a lot of earthy coloured food on the table. So I avoided anything too colourful except the fruit that was served. Even the cake was very earthy looking but it was the look I was going for.  To me there was enough colour added with the pops of green and red and the little first creatures and cute plates, napkins and cups around the place.

I developed this thing for moss around Cooper’s birthday and tough it would be perfect to incorporate it into his woodlands birthday party. After all woodlands is all about forests, rain and why not throw some moss in the mix right? I wanted a big feature. Either a sign saying “one” or a big number 1. I went with the latter option. I whipped up with moss number one which I covered in real moss. I made this number in October and it still hangs in my garage, alive and well and it’s now three months later. The photos just don’t do it justice. It’s really quite beautiful.

I continued with my strange moss obsession and also made a faux moss garland. This was a very simple project and it just finished off the look and feel I was going for.

My mum was very sweet. She know how to sew, a talent I do not possess. So she came up with he idea of making cute party bags out of left over curtain material I had lying around. I finished the bags off by using some fabric paint and stamping some orange and green leaves and a cute blue fox on each party bag. I loved this idea because the kids could use the bags to put in special toys or whatever they like in them. One of my friends loved it and said she had been looking for a little bag to store some puzzle pieces that needed a home for her daughter. Each child got a first animal light up lamp which I picked up at a local homeware store for like $3 each! I also included some first animal stickers, some nice cookies (that came packaged) and balloons. I prefer this type of thing rather than giving a bag full of  sweets to small children.

I made the birthday cake also. I love making and decorating birthday cakes and this was my second ever birthday cake and I was quite happy with it. It’s evident that I’m no professional but my cakes are made with lots of love for my children and I think when you’re creating a birthday party and cake for your child that the most important thing is the love that goes in to it.

I wanted something different. Something I had never really seen or was not going to be too obvious. I decided to make the cake look like the earth and then have some woodlands creatures sitting on top among a cute little forest that is set in the middle of a cold Autumn’s day. I know, pretty descriptive but that’s what I had in mind! haha. I have no tutorial on making the fondant creatures because I was sitting up at almost midnight making them, hence why if you look below you will see the my “deer” actually looks like a cross between a deer and a fat brown bear! Haha. So as you can see I got even more creative and was making all kinds of new breeds of animal in my over tired and delusional state. Ah, what us mum’s do for our kids!

Here’s a close up of my forest cake. As you can see I started with the fox, then the strange bear/deer creature and finished with this slightly hideous racoon that looks like he has issues. I was so tired I was actually laughing out loud at how ridiculous he was looking and no matter how hard I tried to make him better he just got worse looking so I called it a day and left him the way he was.

You can see how I made the forest cake topper here. It was so simple and really made a huge difference to the cake. I finished off the entire look by adding little acorns and mushroom I made from fondant.

In the couple of weeks leading up to the party I purchased some forest creatures and painted them to add as decorations to the table. The best part about doing animal themed parties for little ones is they love looking and pointing out the animals. The boys played with the wooden animals I painted for weeks after.

Lastly and my favourite part of the entire party was the backdrop. How I loved the wall behind the table display!! I wanted to really go all out. For Locky’s barnyard party I made a big cardboard barnyard that was kind of the feature of the table. For Cooper’s I wanted something that covered the entire wall! I wanted something that was easy enough to make and that represented trees. I cut out a whole bunch of triangles and hot glued them to some white and green twine I had in my craft collection. I then used small clear tacks to hang the large garlands from the wall.

Cooper is usually a really happy and easy going baby but he was a little overwhelmed by all the attention that day. He was happy enough but just not his outgoing self. He knew something was up, that’s for sure.

I got no photos go Locky and Cooper together so that was a huge bummer. It was such a busy party and I just forgot and did put down my camera soon after guests started arriving.

What do you think? Do you like the Woodlands Birthday Party theme also? I think Cooper’s party is a little different but I like it. I can’t wait to put the next party together in June for Locky’s 3rd Birthday! Don’t ask me what theme it will be because I have no idea but hope to be a little more organised this year (I say this every year).

Tell me all about the party themes you’ve done for your kids parties or for yours?!

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