A BIG Milestone in a Small Space

This post is part of a 31 day series. You can find my index page here. 

I love throwing parties for my kids, and this month we had a big birthday, but I wasn't sure how to do it with such limited space. I knew I wanted Ezie's theme to be One Happy Camper. I had been dreaming it up for a while. That's what I do when I can't sleep. I just plan parties in my head. However my idea of actually going camping was making me nervous because the last three weather related activities I planned got rained out.

If you are planning an event and have a small home you pretty much have two options. You can keep your guest list relatively small or you can take your party elsewhere. For Ezie's birthday we did both.

I only invited my immediate family. My parents and both of my brother's families. There are 13 of us altogether.

This minimal guest list allowed me to get more creative with the invitations.



I had the birthday boy put orange and yellow hand prints on blank cards and glued painted popsicle sticks to look like a camp fire. It was really sweet, but it would have been difficult to pull off if we had to make any more.



The party began with dinner at a local restaurant. While we were there I gave the kids their party favors to keep our campers happy during meal time.

 

The party bags had a camping scene with the recipients picture inside a tent and were each full of camp themed goodies. (scroll to the end for exact dimensions and more details)



Watching the kids light up as they saw their pictures and pulled out their prizes made my heart overflow with joy! I was thrilled with how it all turned out.

After the restaurant we headed back to the apartment for cake, presents, and a little fort building. I will share about that half tomorrow.

For now here is a "how to" for my camping party favor bags.



 You will need:
1 Brown paper lunch bag for each guest
yellow/white paper or a small print out of a sun or moon
green paper (half an 8x11 sheet for each guest)
blue paper (half an 8 x11 sheet for each guest)
a small photo of each 'camper'
camping party favors *I've got plenty of ideas to choose from

Most paper bags are going to be about 5.5" X 11". I just cut sporadically and guesstimated on all of these (and it shows). For those that are more precise here are some measurments that I took from one of the bags I pulled apart.



The sky is going to be 5.5 x 7.25 inches
The grass is 5.5 X 4.5 inches
The tent is about 4 inches high and 4.25 inches wide.

To make the tent begin by cutting a 4 inch wide (approximately 8 inches long) strip of paper. Then fold each side diagnolly to make a triangle (it will have points hanging down that you will cut off).
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You will end up cutting the each flap two times. Sorry, the only picture I have is this crumpled up one that I pulled off of one of the kids bags. Hopefully I will have a chance to update this later.

I printed the sun and moon out on white paper, but you could make one yourself. Mine were 2x2 inches.

The photo inside is 2 inches high as well.

I think it goes without saying, but glue all the pieces on your bag to make a camping scene. I ran out of blue paper which is why half of my campers are in the dark.



I liked both version. I might have used a dark navy for the night sky if I had planned it ahead.

Equally as fun was the contents inside.



 Here are some ideas along with where you can find them

Clif Kids fruit rope (Kroger organice setion )
Honey Maid s'mores Grahamfuls (Kroger cookie section)
Compass (8 pack at the Dollar Tree)
Magnifying glass (Party City 33 cents each )
Mini Camera that shows pictures when you click the shutter (Party City 48 cents each)

I also thought about doing Pop Rocks, but couldn't find any and later on  I saw these Keebler snacks and thought they were adorable.



If you had a lot of guests and you wanted to keep it simple you could just send the kids home with some Bug Bites!

I think that's it for my ONE Happy Camper party favor set. More camping party ideas coming tomorrow!