My oldest son, Hunter, is a lover of most things Disney. I adore throwing parties and have wanted to throw a pirate themed party since the day Hunter was born. This year, Hunter fell in love with Peter Pan, I think with the help of that cute little Disney Jr. pirate, Jake (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates) and I knew that I could tie together pirates with a Neverland theme. I started planning his birthday party a few months in advance. I had a word document three pages long with ideas that ranged from food to an outdoor Neverland. A month before the party I sent out invitations in a bottle to family and friends inviting them to what I hoped to be the Peter Pan party of the year!
I purchased the bottles here
http://www.orientaltrading.com and addressed each of them differently. I had fun coming up with silly pirate names like, Peyton the Plunderer. Writing on the invitation was harder than I anticipated because it came rolled up, which means that I had to keep the invitation as straight as possible and not allow it to roll back into a scroll. At the top I used the quote from Peter Pan, "All children, except one grow up." and then invited the children to "adventure and journey their way to Hunter's 4th Birthday." The address read "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning," followed by our real address and under the RSVP I wrote, "Please be a Darling and send regrets to..." I found this cute saying here
http://www.etsy.com
I have fallen in love with Miss Party Mom
https://www.facebook.com/misspartymom and loved her ideas from her son's Peter Pan birthday party. I got the idea of using signs in the backyard from her. My husband brought in some old wood from around the house, as well as unused fence boards to make these signs with.
Neverland is at the top, with our hometown right below it. We wrote out each of the invited guest's hometowns and their distance from "Neverland." Around the yard we nailed signs pointing to the various locations of Neverland, ex: Mermaid Lagoon, Crocodile Creek, Indian Camp, etc. Unfortunately when the day arrived, we were rained out and Mermaid Lagoon never made its appearance.
My mom used to own a wedding business with her mom and they so creatively named it, "I Do." My mom made the wedding cakes, my grandma sewed the wedding and bridal gowns and together, with some family help, they catered the affair. I had some of the BEST birthday cakes growing up, and I've always admired my mom's creative talents. I knew that when I had children, I wanted to be able to make their birthday cakes just like my mom had made mine. When planning Hunter's Peter Pan cake, I searched Pinterest up and down and realized that with no cake-making training, there was NO WAY that I was going to make the amazing cakes I was discovering. I knew that I had to make it simple, but I also wanted it to be effective. I decided to make three different cakes with three different scenes (this was merely due to the fact that I bought the cake stand that fit three cakes!) This was the final result.
I got some ideas for these cakes here
http://blog.hwtm.com/2013/02/peter-pan-party/
and here
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals
and here
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals
Plus, I couldn't complete my cake table without cupcakes!
Idea from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dottycupcakesuk
Here is my final cake table display
I made the tent food signs with a scrapbooking program on my computer. We had Tiger Lily's Tee Pees (ice cream cones decorated with frosting), Smee's Cannon Balls (whoppers), Tink's Fairy Wands (chocolate dipped pretzel rods), and Pirate Sails (marshmallows dipped in chocolate with a sail made from scrapbook paper attached to the top).
The dress up table was a highlight for the kids!
They were able to choose if they wanted to be a Pirate or a Fairy. The Fairy pickers got wings and wands, while the pirates got hats, bandanas, eye patches, hooks and sticker mustaches. We also had a Tattoo Parrrrlor. Each child got a Peter Pan book to take with them as a favor (along with all of the dress up goodies). I purchased all of the pirate gear and the fairy wands from
www.orientaltrading.com and the fairy wings from the Dollar Store (good thing Halloween was just around the corner!)
As an activity, each child got to write their "happy thoughts" onto a piece of paper which we attached to balloons, and then let fly! It was a little difficult with the rain, but most of our balloons made it into the air!
We had to move the tables inside due to rain, but they still looked cute!
I made the red and green napkins into Peter Pan hats based on this picture
http://www.lilsugar.com/Peter-Pan-Kids-Birthday-Party (Miss Party Mom does it again!) I wrapped the fork, knife and spoon together with green ribbon and a red feather. Each table setting had a round, wood coaster. In the middle of the tables were treasure chests filled with Swedish fish, Gold Chocolate Coins, and Jake and the Neverland Pirate fruit snacks (the treasure chests were already snatched up by the time this picture was taken) and the kids were able to enjoy a Gold Doubloons hunt in the backyard while the rain stopped for a couple of minutes.
Other activities included a walk the plank (which was moved to the garage due to rain) and some outdoor play time on our homemade tree swing and rope ladders.
The appetizer table looked like this
which included Fish-n-chips
and Peter Pan Kabobs
I think overall, my little Hunter had an AMAZING Day!
Oh, and one of the best parts - our cute little outfits made by
The Striped Swallow and
Littletreetopsbaby
Much fun was had by all!
It sure was a lot of work, but I'm so glad that we chose Peter Pan as a theme! This is a party Hunter will not soon forget. Now...to plan little brother's party. Oh boy! :)
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