Pink Camouflage Adventure Birthday - part one

My daughter, and her trusty side-kick Julie,

patiently waiting to blow out the candles

I know, I know, "Pink Camouflage Adventure Birthday Party" is a serious mouthful of a theme, but man did we have a good time with it!


Invitation


Oh so inspired by my daughter's love of the color pink and obsession with solving mysteries, we came up with the idea to use camouflage as a basic decoration for her theme. We decided that the main event of the party would be a "scavenger hunt" type of activity, so a globe, a compass, binoculars and some stars were only fitting elements to add to her invite.

I created this invitation using Adobe Illustrator, but you could easily use sheets of scrapbooking paper and add your party information by printing it on a sheet of vellum or very light weight stationery paper.


Decorations

hang them from the ceiling, or above doors and windows

You try finding ANY party decorations online or elsewhere that are pink camouflage. I looked, trust me, really hard. Now generally one might feel a little hopeless, and change the party theme, but not me... not when I have a direct hot line to the girls at Paper & Cake (its a free call too).

Pennant banners, water bottle labels, cupcake picks, favor tags.... anything I could dream up - I designed, printed, cut out and installed - much to the dismay of my oh so patient husband.

labels, simply wrapped around and taped in back

cupcake toppers with sprinkles to match

very easy, VERY popular popcorn "bar"

Craft & Party Favors

The Craft and Party Favors for this party came hand in hand. I decided to create a "satchel" to contain adventure assisting equipment such as binoculars, spy sunglasses and bandanas. You know where I'm going with this.... yup, Aunt Janet to the rescue - again. I found some pink camo fabric at Jenny's Fabric (in Fountain Valley for all you So. Cal residents), and picked up regular green camo fabric at Jo-Ann's.

Using some webbing and d-rings I picked up at the Fabric Barn, my Aunt Janet, my mom and I came up with a "fanny pack" style bag using about 1/4 yard for each one. We had to make a total of 15 little bags, so they had to be super simple! I've attached some illustrated diagrams here for you to make your own. I bet you could even put these together with fabric glue if you don't want to sew them.

the finished product!

click to enlarge above diagrams

Now that you've seen the party favor bag - here is what we did to make it part of the craft project of the party. Using borrowed stencils, and paint that I already had, I had the kids stencil their new camo fanny packs, with black, white or purple paint. Just open the flap up, and tape it to the table to keep it steady - we also taped the stencil if it was complex.

Although it took WAY too long to dry - it was totally worth it! (I ended up using a hair dryer on them while the kids ate snacks)

so proud of their new packs!

Stay tuned for part two - I'll show you the cake and Adventure activity!