Winnie the Pooh -1yr- Forest Scene Cake Table

I organized our baby girl’s (Joanna’s) first birthday.  Since her room is winnie the pooh and she loves looking at her Winnie baby book while we read about the forest adventure, I decided her theme would be winnie's 1st birthday.    The kids went crazy over everything.   I live in Europe and theme parties are unheard of here.  Everything was custom made since I can not find theme related items.  

The invitation was a cut out of Winnie with pals with all the information printed on it.  Inside, I included a note to the parents to bring a small inexpensive item that represents our times for the time capsule (a Winnie storage box I luckily found) that will be opened during Joanna’s 18th birthday.  

The decorations started from the main entrance through the living room  balloons tied together to look like flowers  (long green balloons for stems and five large balloons of the same color tied at the top to represent the petals).  On the cake table and dinner table the same long stem balloon flowers placed into large clay pots. The room was perfectly decorated with streamers and the flower balloons.  On one of the walls personally made  paintings (by grandpa!) of the entire winnie’s forest scene behind the cake table and buffet table which were decked out in winnie’s 1st table cloths cups, plates, cups etc. (these were internationally shipped through a birthday supply site).     

I ordered personalized Winnie buttons (a big hit)!  I tacked them on white small paper bags with handles which had a winnie traced on them.  They were placed  on the entrance way wall with a pink ribbon.  I rolled photo copies of a few more winnie coloring pages and placed them in each bag so they can color them at home later.  As the kids  entered they located their bag through the personalized button and put it on.  They got to color the paper bags  with crayons placed in a big bowl on a short table in a corner of the living room.  This gave kids something to do when they entered the party.  The bags served as a helper in collecting game prizes pinata candy and their departing gift.  

Various games were played 1st game was pass the box (another version of hot potato) A box wrapped with lots of layers of paper.  Kids are sitting in a circle when the music stops the holder of the box got to unwrap one layer.  The winner got the prize (a Winnie photo frame) and all kids got colorful pencils.  2nd game make a mummy.  Kids were divided into too teams they got to wrap the mummy (a team member wrapped  with toilet paper).  The team that finished first got gifts (Winnie note pads) the other team members got a lollypop.  3rd game was stick the nose on Winnie (another version of pin the tail on the donkey).  Then we collected the items for the time capsule and each kid got to explain what it is and why.   

Then we had dinner. The food served was great!  Every one ate kid food.  The platters were card board wrapped in aluminum foil and white paper doilies.  The menu included cat face sandwiches ( ham and cheese with shredded cheese for fur cucumber strips for whiskers red bell pepper cut into little noses and pieces of black olives for eyes)   a long  long centipede chicken sandwich with mini hot dog legs, potato twists, pigs in a blanket (mini hotdogs wrapped with bacon) mini cheese pies (made with fillo dough)  chicken nuggets a house sculpture made from bread with pretzel sticks for the roof and cheese slices for the windows and doors filled with mini meat balls, a kiddy cheese platter with carved out yellow bell pepper filled with green olives the salad was bite sized tomato cucumber plate with hard boiled eggs decorated into penguins even the ketchup bottle was kiddy styled!,  Juice was served to all kids and the older kids and adults got soda pop.  

The pull string pinata was a hand made by myself ‘piglet’ (I am glad I was familiar with Paper Mache and I am a crafty person) and was smash right before the cake . I explained what the pinata’s origin is from and what they had to do I did not tell them what the piñata was filled with. Needless to say most kids and adults in Europe have never seen a piñata before and were totally surprised by all that candy.  

The finale was the cake.  I splurged by ordering since in Europe they have the best pastry shops !  I took a  Winnie paper plate to the pastry chef literally drew the forest and pond with Winnie holding a flower.   The flavor was out of this world, a chocolate and a vanilla layers with creamy frosting in the middle.  It said ‘happy 1st birthday Joanna’.   

What a memorable successful 1st birthday party!  All kids were asking me if all of Joanna’s parties will be like this one!   

Most  of the ideas were from your site and I thank you for letting us share them!    Joanna, mom and dad wish all your birthdays are special enjoyed in health and  surrounded by people that love you!