Lion King/Safari -4yr- Oversized Alphabet Blocks

Safari/Lion king Party: 

My 4 year old Daughter really wanted a lion king party, but since lion king isn't as popular now, it was hard to find anything besides the plates and cups. We found a lion king baby shower theme with adorable baby characters of simba, nala, timon and pumbba on them with a animal print boarder  so we used the cake plates, cups and napkins but the dinner plates said Welcome Little One" to match we used giraffe and zebra print dinner plates. Since that was all we bought  that was lion king and all I had to work with so it ended up pretty much being a safari party! Oh well she still loved it! 

CAKE & CUPCAKE STAND I made a cupcake stand using two giant wooden spools. First I painted both spools black in case there was anything showing when it was finished once dry I covered them with animal print paper (I found a huge pack of mixed animal print paper at the craft store figured I would be making a lot for the party) I had a couple lion king vhs laying around so I cut out the front of the movie covers and glued them to the middle of each spool. I put one spool on top of the other and had a 3 tier cupcake stand. Next I used some black lacy ribbon and glued it around the top and bottom tray then used orange tulle and made a mini no sew tutu and glued that around the middle tray. 

CAKE:  We made a banana pudding filled vanilla cake with cool whip icing and used safari animals on top for decoration then put the whole cake on top of the cake stand. To go with it we made vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla and chocolate icing and used National Geographic animal cupcake wrappers with matching picks. We put the cupcakes on the bottom of the cake stand and in the middle we put homemade brownies decorated with zebra print "Brownie Tattoos".  Next to the cake stand we put out the cake plates and napkins. We also used a coffee can that we wrapped in animal print paper and glued a picture of Timon and puma that was cut out from the back of the vhs case inside the can we put spoons to use when it was time to have cake.

DECORATIONS:   I'll start with my favorite! We made wooden "HAPPY FOURTH BIRTHDAY" blocks for on the cake table. My Husband cut 21 3X3 wooden blocks and my Daughter and I painted them half light brown and half orange with glitter. Then using the cricket cutter cut out the letters in yellow paper and we glued them on to the blocks. On the extra two  blocks I glued two cut out simbas from the back cover of a Disney coloring book.  We stacked the blocks one word on top of the other and along the top I put some little lenox Lion King figures that we already had.  On the food table I had two baskets one for the forks and one for the knives. I used the front covers of the coloring books for this one. One cover had simba one had nala. I cut each one out and glued each picture to a piece of folded animal print paper. Inside the folded paper I glued a plastic knife for support then I glued each one to the back of a basket. We found safari animal brads on sale at the craft store and wrapped one around the handle of each fork. It took a while so we ended up only doing the forks but they looked awesome!  Every table was decorated with little animal toys that I found in the playroom.  Around the rest of the house we had animal print balloons and cut outs of animals in party hats that came in packs of 15. 

ACTIVITIES:  The girls had a yellow pop up bus tent that they never played with so I decided to make a "Safari bus". We painted it green and used the cutter to cut out "Safari Bus" and glued them onto a piece of animal print paper then glued that to the front of the bus. We also cut out "Jeep" and glued that to the front of the bus. On two sides of the bus there was stop sings that said "Kids At Play" I used the cutter again to cut out "Monkeys at play" and cut out red animal print stop sings to cover the "Kids at play" sings. On the inside of the bus we hung a stuffed monkey in each corner and stuck monkey stickers all around the inside.  

To go with the Safari Bus we made a "Lions Den" with 3 big boxes. We taped them all together and made a long tunnel.  We painted the whole thing green On one side of the tunnel we added a door way and hung black tulle as a door  On the other side of the tunnel we cutout a window and taped more animal print paper on the "Shutters" We lined the inside of the tunnel with safari animal wrapping paper and cut foam mats to fit on the floor inside so it would be a little softer for the kids while crawling around. On top of the tunnel we put out a bunch or lion masks for the kids to play with in their lion den.  We set up a table with plastic safari hats and foam animal stickers so the kids could decorate their own hat.  I think that was actually their favorite part! 

After lunch we moved outside and had a "Animal Hunt" with little safari animals. We hid them around the front yard and each kid got a little brown bag with their name on it and went on a safari hunt!  After the animal hunt the kids got to play with bubbles we filled a plastic drink dispenser with bubbles and decorated it with Lion king stickers we put out dixi cups and lots bubble wands!

GOODIE BAGS:  I cut pieces of poster board and glued each piece into a tube. Then I used that animal paper and covered the poster board.  Next I used lion king books a found for really cheap at a yard sale and cut the pictures out and decorated the tubes with the pictures. Each goodie bag got lion king stickers Lion king happy meal toy a couple lion king coloring pages from the coloring books markers bubbles and ice pops (Not frozen yet ;]) I also crochet ice pop cozies one for each goodie bag. 

EXTRAS Upon arrival each lady got a animal print lay and each kid got a pair of homemade binoculars. To make the binoculars each pair needed two toilet paper rolls. I painted them black and cutout strips of  animal print paper and glued the paper around the middle of each tube leaving about a inch of black tube sticking out on each end. Then I painted the small size linkin logs black and glued the block in the middle of the two tubes so the tubes would be far enough apart for them to see through. Then I glued brown yarn on to them as the lanyard."