Wyatt's zoo party

Wyatt turned 2 this past week. If you know me at all, you know I love to throw a good birthday party. Since he was turning 2 I thought I would have a zoo party (two, zoo, get it?) I don't know what I did before pinterest so of course, I started there. I found these super cute invites that were on etsy. The seller was really nice and I would highly recommend her. (She made numerous changes for me because I had no idea what I wanted them to say.) :)  https://www.etsy.com/shop/saralukecreative

I will admit that I probably spent too much money on invites for a 2 year olds birthday party. Since these were a digital file I then had to get them printed off. I love mpix and always get things printed  there. They are so fast and usually get things within a few days. Not to mention the quality is always amazing.

Once I had the invites set I had to juggle between getting ready for Christmas and planning the rest of the party. So again I went to pinterest as my time saver. I found some more great things there. Like these awesome paper balloon animals from Pearl River.  I also got the paper lanterns there. They have a TON of colors in all different sizes. I could have bought many, many more.

 

I also checked out my usual Oriental Trading Company and got these fun foam animal masks.

They are $6.25/dozen. You can't beat that price.

 

 

I went to a great local craft fair in December, A Handmade Christmas, and one of the shops had travel crayon cases. I loved the idea so of course I wanted to make my own. I like having useful/fun things as party favors so I thought this was a great idea. So I went to work. I only needed 10, that should take no time at all. ;) I will admit that I had an ulterior motive...I also wanted to add them to my Audrey's Room shop and I needed to make some so I could take pictures. I got them all done and they turned out great. (Feel free to purchase some for your next birthday party, or Valentine's gift,  or Easter basket, etc. "Shameless plug." :)

Crayon cases

 

A few days before the party I had an amazing idea to make an edible arrangement! (Thank you Lis for having a Pampered Chef party were I saw an awesome fruit and cheese cutter that I just had to have) Maybe making an edible arrangement in the middle of winter wasn't the best idea as fruit is REALLY expensive. Oh well. It was in my head so I wasn't backing down.

 

Ta da.

I cut a little watermelon in half and stuck everything in that. Used another Wilton flower cookie cutter set to make different sized flowers and you can't forget to bust out that melon baller. I added a few chocolate covered strawberries and added extra fruit to the bottom.

 

Next came the cake. I really had no idea what I was going to do other than make the cake part look like a zebra (alternate scoops of chocolate and white cake in the cake pans, thanks again to pinterest) The night I was going to construct it I realized I probably needed to have supports since it was going to be two tiers. Thank goodness for google, I figured out how to do that in no time. As far as decorating goes, that really was last minute. Wyatt has some Little People Zoo animals so I stole a few of those. Then took some cans of frosting and went to town. I used graham crackers for sand, pretzel rods for the fence, and marshmellows sprayed with Wilton silver color mist as the rocks around the water. I have never made a "real" cake before so I thought this turned out really well. Best part is that Wyatt LOVED it. Once he saw it, he wanted to sit on the counter next to it and look at it.

 

 

 

There's the party. I hope everyone had a great time because I know I did. And I'm pretty sure the birthday boy did as well. Now I get a month off and then I have to start planning Audrey's birthday in February... :)

Rebekah