Safari Party -2yr- Animal Bean Bag Toss

It was easy to decide to have my son's party theme to be Safari" since he LOVES animals so much.  

INVITATIONS: I made my own invitations using EXCEL - I made a 5 x 7 grid and randomly placed a lion a zebra a giraffe a gorilla and a parrot along with boxes of vibrant colors on the grid.  I then chose a few animals - the lion & gorilla to be exact to make the card 3-D and I lifted them up using double sided tape and foam.  In the boxes of vibrant colors it they read "its going to be wild" "a roaring good time" and the other 3-D box read "Luca's 2nd Birthday Safari Adventure".  Once I printed them out the back of the card had all of the information about the party.  I used special design scissors to cut out the 3-D portion of the card.  I found great enevelopes at a local closeout store that were blue green yellow and white tie dye.  They really fit the safari theme! 

DECORATIONS: I ordered animal print balloons from Oriental Trading both white and orange and neon colored ones as well to spice up the color.  I ordered a safari themed banner from Windy City Novelties that read "Luca's Birthday Safari Adventure" and another that just read "Happy Birthday Luca!" from BirthdayExpress.com.  [Its always smart to get generic banners without numbers so you can reuse them in the years to come] As centerpieces I purchased small wooden gift bags that are about 4" high by 1" wide and painted them green and had my best friends sit down with me and decorate them with foam animal and foam party stickers.  I created a small weight for each using pebbles for a fish tank (very inexpensive) and I tied 3 balloons to each centerpiece. 

I also created "grass" by using a crimping machine I have and then used my shredder to cut it up into pieces (you can also find this pre-made at an arts and craft store).  I found 2 regular "happy birthday" banners at a party store that was going out of business - just my luck they were safari themed and both different! So we hung those around. I also bought these really vibrant foil decorations that varied in size and hung them all over the hall - it looked amazing - all of the colors it was as if we were in the amazon! I kept it simple with the table cloths and just bought random colored ones for each table except for the table for the food and the cake table which were both safari themed.

ACTIVITIES: Activities for the children included: designing their own pith helmets which I purchased from Windy City Novelties.  They were white plastic pith helmets that they designed using foam animal and foam letter stickers which I purchased from Michaels.  I purchased a book from Barnes and Noble called "Animal Planet - Paint yourself Wild" which taught us step by step how to paint the childrens faces into wild animals.  They LOVED it! I enjoy parties where not only the children are having fun but the adults are as well so an activity for the adults was "Design Safari Theme Shirts for the Birthday Boy". 

I purchased crayola fabric markers from Oriental Trading and packs of White t-shirts all different sizes that would fit my son and I set up a table for the adults to design shirts for him!  You don’t have to be picasso to do it - it’s a lot of fun and if the adults complain that they cant draw I told them to try there best and that it didn’t have to be safari theme - they can draw out their birthday wish for Luca.  (I did this at his 1st bday and they loved it so I figures why not do it again!) And we cant forget the Pinata! I purchased an Elephant Pinata from Oriental Trading and I converted it to a Pull String Pinata all the kids held a string and pulled! It was a blast to watch them drop to the floor to get the goodies! In the pinata was a Mega Zoo Assortment that I bought from Oriental Trading as well as great candy!

GAMES: I purchased several Safari theme games from Oriental Trading such as an Animal Bean bag toss game an Inflatable Pin the Tail on the Donkey A Tiger Dart board an inflatable Happy Birthday catch game safari bowling kit and pin the banana on the Monkey.  I gave away prizes for the inflatable pin the tail on the donkey and pin the banana on the Monkey.  The Prizes were for the top 3 winners of the two games - prizes for the boys were animal print footballs and for the girls they were animal print fans.

PARTY SNACKS: I like to throw big parties for my son being that I am a single mom and he was a premature baby - I like him to have a great time and also to be full along with his guests.  So I do not do any snacks instead I do a buffet of food.  My mother helps to cook the Spanish food and I order Italian food so there are options for the guest.  Since children are picky eaters I get a few Pizza pies for them.  For the plates I purchased white and blue hefty plates for the adults and for the children I bought the ZOO Pals plates so they eat off of different animals.  I also used the Zoo plates for the cake plates. 

CAKE - I purchased from my favorite Italian Bakery Fortunato Bros in Brooklyn NY and I had them make a giraffe (I figured it would be easiest to cut - and it was).

FAVORS - I didn’t like the bags that I saw that were safari themed so I bought a pack of brown lunch bags white sticker sheets from Staples and zebra print ribbon from Michaels and I made my own favor bags.  I created stickers that said "Luca's Safari Adventure" and it had a safari on the bottom of the sticker.  I then made my best friends sit down with me again to decorate the bags a little more using the foam animal and foam party stickers.  To close the bags we folded the top of the bag punched 2 holes on the folded portion of the bag and cut a piece of zebra ribbon and tied the bags closed. 

In each bag was a 24 pk of crayola crayons I also made stickers for the boxes of crayons and they also read "Luca's Birthday Safari Adventure" (the stickers just covered the front portion of the box - I used the same sticker paper I got from staples for this) for the older children's gift bag I purchased a "multi-color pencil" and made stickers that read the same and wrapped the stickers around each pencil they also contained "make your own safari animal sticker set" safari rulers/bookmarks foam animal stickers and foam party stickers & candy.  Each child also went home with a coloring/activity book that I made using my sons coloring books as well as the good old internet to get pictures of animals.  I designed the cover using Powerpoint b/c it has a lot of awesome features on it.  "