Three Little Pigs Party -3yr- Decorate Your Shirt

My daughter Faith chose her favorite story The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf for her 3rd birthday party theme. 

INVITATIONS:  I am a big fan of photo invitations, so I had one designed and reprinted on 5x7 photo paper that had a brick backdrop and 3 little pigs and a wolf.  I had a photo of Faith with her hands raised making a wolf snarl inset in a house and the invitation began, Come watch Faith huff and puff and blow her 3 candles out. (www.ProPhotoCards.com). I used 6 x 9 invitation-style envelopes and printed (Microsoft Word clip art) 3 pigs on the front with a you're invited to make it a little more personal.

ATTIRE:  For her birthday attire, I took a denim jumper and painted 3 pigs on 1 side and a wolf puffing on the other side and wrote Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? She wore a pink shirt underneath.  She was dressed in theme!  For party hats  each child received a felt pig hat (purchased from Michael's craft store).  That made for an adorable group picture! 

DECORATIONS: I put her recent 3-year old portrait on the table beside her cake with a caption at the top of the frame reading, This Little Piggy is 3!  I found a few stuffed pigs at the Dollar store and placed them around the table & cake.  The table was set in pink and I used THE PIG themed party ware (BirthdayExpress.com) including the big pig helium balloon! 

CAKE: I made a 13x9 cake (removed from the pan & set atop a gift-wrapped box) frosted entirely in green. I purchased 2 Sara Lee frozen pound cakes cut 2 houses from 1 and 1 from the other & covered with frosting.  These are very firm & easy to decorate.  Each house received a wafer cookie front door. 

The straw house was finished in yellow (colored) coconut; the stick house was decorated with stacked thin pretzel sticks, and the brick house was adorned in red licorice Nibs cut in half. (Note:  These were made about a week in advance - wrapped and stored in the freezer).  Each house was set atop the cake and I added a graham cracker crumb path that ran to each of the 3 houses. 

At the corner of the cake, I heavily frosted a sugar cone to look like an evergreen tree.  I set a 2 pig figurine (purchased on Ebay) in front of each house and a 2 wolf figurine (E-Bay) hiding behind the tree.  I also served for dessert a pig ice cream ball. I made the pig-faced cookies (www.tasteofhome.com) which is basically a pink frosted cookie  cut a marshmallow in half and used for the snout.

Tiny M&M's were used for the eyes and nostrils and the corner of pink wafer cookies (cut in a triangle) were set on top for the ears.  I attached each pig face cookie (with a dab of frosting) to a scoop of strawberry ice cream adding a licorice curl tail.  I kept these in the freezer until just before serving time. 

ACTIVITIES:   As soon as the kids arrived, we went to the basement for our craft activity.  Prior to the event, I purchased white t-shirts during a sale and pre-washed them (using NO fabric softener).  Since the majority of the guests were about 3 years old, I pre-stamped a pig (Herrschers.com for the stamp) on each shirt in pink fabric paint and outlined it in black and let it dry.  Each child received a shirt and a craft smock (Oriental Trading) and was able to paint a design or background on their pig shirt. 

I had sponge stamps, and stencils along with wells of fabric paint colors and brushes.  A couple of the older kids (12+) got a plain t-shirt to design as they pleased.  I hung the shirts up and they were dry by the time the party was over and they were able to take their art-wear home.  I had drawn & watercolor-painted a scene on large white roll paper of the 3 little pigs/big bad wolf.  Not only did it serve as a great backdrop, but also it was used to play pin the tail on the wolf. I also had a pull-string Pig-ata (birthdayexpress.com) which was a huge hit. 

PARTY SNACKS: Some examples of what the menu consisted of were Pigs in a Blanket (crescent covered hot dogs) for the kids, and wolf meat (beef) sandwiches, & pink piggy punch.  At end of the event each child received a giant-sized farm animal coloring/sticker book (from the Dollar Store).  On the inside cover I attached a (clip art) picture of a pig that said, Thank You For Hamming It Up With Me At My 3rd Birthday Party.  Hogs & Kisses, Faith.  I had pig thank you notes and enclosed not only a wallet-sized portrait photo of Faith but also a sheet of pig stickers (BirthdayExpress.com).