A DIY Jungle Party

Finn is five! And so to celebrate our first, proper, kids party. And an old fashioned kids party at that, otherwise know as encouraged chaos!

We started with the theme - animals - jungle / safari / domestic - up to you! Mainly as Finn has always talked about being the person to take people to visit animals in the wild - now amplified thanks to the discovery of Go Diego Go on Netflicks! So his party invitation were created and sent far and wide.

Next on the list was the cake. Now i'm not a baker and so sought advice from the friends and family and ended up using the Big Raspberry Cake recipe from the Great British Bake Off (minus the raspberries, plus some vanilla essence and an extra egg.) I then made a ganache (which sounds so bake-y!), which is chocolate and double cream. I left it over night to set and then whipped up a good dollop to make the filling then softened the rest to cover the cake:

After this had set it was on with the coloured fondant icing (brought from a shop!). I rolled the base out on cornflour and used water to stick my cut out shapes.

 

Next were decorations. I spray-painted charity shop plastic animals, made paper vines which were blu-tacked to the walls, animal-print balloons and blow-up animals - created a perfect jungle!

I designed a special message for our blackboard wall.

Next the all important party bags. Having gone to several parties recently I knew how much kids loved getting these but also the pressure to fill them - they can get so expensive. A tip from a helpful shop owner saved the day. I got two packs of animal books from Ebay from an outlet similar to the The Book People. I then found some great printable downloads from Pinterest and dropped in a lolly!

Getting the food right was crucial. Again Pinterest offered lots of inspiration and soon we had a table of jungle treats.

 

 Jungle Juice, Swamp Water, Twigs, Tiger Tails, Bettle Wings, Flying Bugs, Safari Salsa and Shark Fins, Snake sandwiches

 elephant poo!

Snake eggs

 Hungry Hippo Dips

I also made Lion Pizzas, Crocodile teeth (watermelon) and the show-stealer a Mud Bath (Chocolate Fountain) with pineapple and marshmallow dippers.

Although the weather wasn't great we were still able to play some favourites of pass-the-parcel and musical chairs.

Which resulted in one happy birthday boy - pictured here in his Go Diego Go outfit. I made the vest using the Oliver + S Explorer Vest pattern - and swapping the top pockets for the Diego emblem (made from felt) instead.

Thanks to everyone who made it a success and such fun!