My daughter has adored animals for as long as she's known what they are. Since at the time she was particularly into lions and zebras, I decided to throw her a wild animal party. On cardstock I printed out the following: Guess who's turning three? I'm not lion it's me! So join us for a roaring good time as we go wild over Hanna's 3rd birthday. When: Aug. 6 Stampede starts at 3pm swing in anytime between 3-6pm. Where: our personal zoo (gave address). Light refreshments and cake will be available to tame the tiger in all of us. No monkeying around until the party! Be like an elephant and remember to RSVP..." After printing them I used bright primary colors to stamp jungle animals on the invitation. For the decorations: I have to jump on my soapbox here. I get so annoyed that party stores only cater to the big commercial characters. I could have found Lion King or Madagascar decorations to my heart's content but do you think I could find a plain wild animal? NOPE! Same thing happened for her 2nd bday which was Puppies/kitties. Didn't think finding a balloon with just a generic cat or dog on it would have been that hard! ANYWAY I turned to the internet for my party needs and was thrilled with all that was out there. I was able to find tableware with just generic animals on them a Zebra pinata animal blow ups regular and oversized mylar balloons (one in the shape of a lion) and of course OTC had a ton of great wild animal novelties (felt lollipop toppers pop ups etc). For activities I found some inexpensive wood animals at Michaels craft store for the kids to paint and then of course there was the pinata! There weren't many kids there so I didn't need much to occupy them other than the swing set. I had used the stamps from the invitations to stamp paper bags for them to use during the pinata and for favors I got cute jungle animal cups from OTC and filled them ahead of time with animal crackers and some other novelties. The cakes were the best--she wanted an elephant cake which I made following an idea from another site. That one was chocolate with peanut butter icing and then I also made a monkey using the Animal Crackers Wilton pan which was banana flavored. Since I have no cake decorating experience other than her previous birthday cakes I thought they turned out pretty cute! Every year I turn to the internet for ideas including this helpful site and I've never been disappointed. Thanks so much!"