Ladybird Picnic (2012 Party Planner Party No 4)

Happy 2nd Birthday to my favourite girl

Being 2 is sooo much fun!

The rainiest day of the summer and we had a picnic planned!  Oh dear.  Well an indoor picnic for 20 kids is still fun....right??

Eliza of course was dressed as a little ladybird 

As you can see her big brother is never out of his superman outfit! I'm sure superman loves a good picnic...

THe tutu has felt black dots stuck on with fabric glue between the layers and I made the wings out of an old wire hanger and some black tights with red cardboard dots. 

The picnic food....

Flower cucumber - who knew cucumber could look so pretty? (found this idea here)

Cheese and tomato mushrooms - these work for this party as well as the Mario party!

Ladybird babybel (idea from here) - so simple!!

 "ladybird wings" pretzels

 Ham and cheese snails - wraps rolled up into a snail shape with a grape for a head 

 Caterpillars (see the pin here)

And onto desserts.....

 Finlay helped to make all the little ladybirds for his little sister's birthday cake.

sweets table

 loveheart marshmallows :) - saved me doing cake pops :) 

 Coconut and lime drizzle cakes in the shape of insects:) 

 Ladybird biscuits

 All the guests helped themselves to an insect face mask and buzzed about inside instead of outside

And played in the ladybird/bee photo box

There was a pin the spots on the ladybird game but the party was a bit mad with 20 small children so we didn't get round to playing this but we had fun for days after playing this 

There were jars of sweets dotted around with hand-painted numbers in the ladybird theme

I love bunting and I went a bit bunting crazy for this party :) 

Cricut creation from cardboard 

Eliza's old clothes cut into bunting and sewn together - these would have looked so much better hanging outside - blooming Scottish summer weather!!

And more colour-themed bunting made from Eliza's baby clothes and an old Tesco bag for life :) Now the party is over Eliza has a bunting filled bedroom :) 

I also had a colour-themed wreath made from clothes pegs covered in craft paper/tape.  I want to make another one of these for Christmas where the pegs are actually functional rather than only decorative but I liked this for the colours on the day :) They are just pegged to a cardboard circle - I tried to attach them to a wire circle through the metal part of the peg but they just spun round. I just had a quick look and found this pin and I plan to follow this guide next time.

  The rustic party bags for all the children - each child had their initial cut out of decorative tape.  I love mini pegs and bows :) - I made a mistake with ordering the paper bags they were meant to be much smaller but never mind!

 Butterfly peg sweets

And a little ladybird cake for all the guests to take home...

We had a brilliant time despite the weather and I can't believe my little girl is 2 already!!  

What kind of a party am I going to do for her next year?

Finally I will show you the mini cake I made for Eliza's actual birthday since her party was the day after for her grandparents to get a bit of cake on the day without having to cut into the ladybird cake before the picnic

And she shares her birthday with her little friend Owen born on the same day 12 hours later so here is his cake we made for him.  Happy birthday little twinnies :D