My daughter Faith chose her favorite story The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf for her 3rd birthday party theme.
INVITATIONS: I am a big fan of photo invitations, so I had one designed and reprinted on 5x7 photo paper that had a brick backdrop and 3 little pigs and a wolf. I had a photo of Faith with her hands raised making a wolf snarl¯ inset in a house and the invitation began, Come watch Faith huff and puff and blow her 3 candles out.¯ (www.ProPhotoCards.com). I used 6 x 9¯ invitation-style envelopes and printed (Microsoft Word clip art) 3 pigs on the front with a you're invited¯ to make it a little more personal. ATTIRE: For her birthday attire, I took a denim jumper and painted 3 pigs on 1 side and a wolf puffing on the other side and wrote Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? She wore a pink shirt underneath. She was dressed in theme! For party hats each child received a felt pig hat (purchased from Michael's craft store). That made for an adorable group picture! DECORATIONS: I put her recent 3-year old portrait on the table beside her cake with a caption at the top of the frame reading, This Little Piggy is 3!¯ I found a few stuffed pigs at the Dollar store and placed them around the table & cake. The table was set in pink and I used THE PIG themed party ware (BirthdayExpress.com) including the big pig helium balloon! CAKE: I made a 13x9 cake (removed from the pan & set atop a gift-wrapped box) frosted entirely in green. I purchased 2 Sara Lee frozen pound cakes cut 2 houses from 1 and 1 from the other & covered with frosting. These are very firm & easy to decorate. Each house received a wafer cookie front door. The straw house was finished in yellow (colored) coconut; the stick house was decorated with stacked thin pretzel sticks, and the brick house was adorned in red licorice Nibs cut in half. (Note: These were made about a week in advance - wrapped and stored in the freezer). Each house was set atop the cake and I added a graham cracker crumb path that ran to each of the 3 houses. At the corner of the cake, I heavily frosted a sugar cone to look like an evergreen tree. I set a 2¯ pig figurine (purchased on EBay) in front of each house and a 2¯ wolf figurine (E-Bay) hiding behind the tree. I also served for dessert a pig ice cream ball. I made the pig-faced cookies (www.tasteofhome.com) which is basically a pink frosted cookie cut a marshmallow in half and used for the snout. Tiny M&M's were used for the eyes and nostrils and the corner of pink wafer cookies (cut in a triangle) were set on top for the ears. I attached each pig face cookie (with a dab of frosting) to a scoop of strawberry ice cream adding a licorice curl tail. I kept these in the freezer until just before serving time. ACTIVITIES: As soon as the kids arrived, we went to the basement for our craft activity. Prior to the event, I purchased white t-shirts during a sale and pre-washed them (using NO fabric softener). Since the majority of the guests were about 3 years old, I pre-stamped a pig (Herrschers.com for the stamp) on each shirt in pink fabric paint and outlined it in black and let it dry. Each child received a shirt and a craft smock (Oriental Trading) and was able to paint a design or background on their pig shirt. I had sponge stamps, and stencils along with wells of fabric paint colors and brushes. A couple of the older kids (12+) got a plain t-shirt to design as they pleased. I hung the shirts up and they were dry by the time the party was over and they were able to take their art-wear home. I had drawn & watercolor-painted a scene on large white roll paper of the 3 little pigs/big bad wolf. Not only did it serve as a great backdrop, but also it was used to play pin the tail on the wolf¯. I also had a pull-string Pig-ata (birthdayexpress.com) which was a huge hit. PARTY SNACKS: Some examples of what the menu consisted of were Pigs in a Blanket (crescent covered hot dogs) for the kids, and wolf meat (beef) sandwiches, & pink piggy punch. At end of the event each child received a giant-sized farm animal coloring/sticker book (from the Dollar Store). On the inside cover I attached a (clip art) picture of a pig that said, Thank You For Hamming It Up With Me At My 3rd Birthday Party. Hogs & Kisses, Faith¯. I had pig thank you notes and enclosed not only a wallet-sized portrait photo of Faith but also a sheet of pig stickers (BirthdayExpress.com).