Mama Pea Pod: {Gruffalo Birthday Party}

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A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood...

Sweet Pea had her 3rd birthday last week, and since her absolute favourite story of all time is The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson, what could be better than a Gruffalo themed birthday party?

Now my tummy's beginning to rumble...

Naturally, we had a Gruffalo's feast menu:

Roasted Fox (sausage rolls)

Mouse on a Slice of Bread (turkey sandwiches)

Fruits of the Forest (strawberries)

Scrambled Snake (jello, set then scrambled)

and Gruffalo Crumble with Owl Ice-Cream on the Side

(you won't want to miss our super easy Gruffalo Crumble recipe!)

Cakes are definitely not my forte, so I made it easy on myself:

a simple chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting, and a store-bought, personalized, edible Gruffalo cake topper that I ordered here. All I had to do was peel it off the backing paper and lay it on top. Because I used butter cream frosting, I decided to make a marzipan backing for it in case the butter caused the topper colours to run (it's made of a very thin layer of icing, printed with food colouring). Then I just placed the whole thing on the top of the cake.

For the sides, I printed some pictures of the Gruffalo and stuck them onto a piece of green construction paper. Then I stuck the paper onto a backing of baking paper the same length and width, wrapped it around the cake, and taped it together in the back.

His eyes are orange, his tongue is black,

He has purple prickles all over his back.

For games and activities, we made Gruffalo masks that I printed from here, read The Gruffalo story while huddled in the Gruffalo's cave (I placed all our large houseplants in a semicircle around one corner of the living room to make a den and we sat in the middle), we had Gruffalo hunts (taking turns hiding Sweet Pea's little toy Gruffalo), and played pin the parts on the Gruffalo with this large, felt Gruffalo I made (which we can use as a Gruffalo felt play board afterwards).

I had originally planned to also use our DIY Gruffalo Puppet Theatre, but in the end we didn't.

I also made some DIY Gruffalo window clings to decorate and play with (separate post to follow).

Oh help! Oh no!

It's a Gruffalo!

And I made some attempt to turn our kiddie table and stools into toadstools - though I ran out of time to attach them better, so they ended up being a rush job.

And for her birthday present, we got some Gruffalo t-shirts made for her at our local t-shirt printing store. She LOVES them - definitely her favourite gift!

In the party favour bag were some bubbles, a little toy, and some Gruffalo printables from here (in addition to the masks, we included the DIY finger puppets, colouring sheets, and mazes).