I feel like I have already touched on this in past birthday posts, but being a teacher, I am a planner, and when a planner is pregnant with her first child, she plans. ALOT. When we brought Ezra home, our sweet baby girl, my ovaries were exploding with love for this babe and my mind was exploding with cute baby clothes, DIY’s for her nursery and most of all, BIRTHDAYS! All the birthdays I was going to throw, that I was going to plan and go all out, that I was going to shout it from the rooftop how much I loved this little girl of mine! Right then and there I had mapped out what I wanted to do for her first 3 birthdays, and thankfully all that ‘pinning’ didn’t go to waste, because I never changed my mind on any of the themes!
Check them out here: Ezra’s First Flamingo and Tea for TWO
Wild + Three Birthday Highlights
- Jaw Dropping Face Painting (Rainbow Faces Face Painting)
- DIY Balloon Garland
- Custome Leopard Scrunchies (Haven Ohlee)
- Action Packed Goodie Bags (Creations by Sonia)
- Delicious Macarons (Kizzy’s Macarons)
- Tattoo Bar
- DIY Golden Jungle Animals Decor
- Wild+Three Geometrical Cookies (Little Acres Home Bakery)
Leading up to Ezra’s birthday my thoughts were scattered everywhere, my first initial thought for Wild+Three was a rock and roll, leopard tights and air guitar theme. I then started to plan and research the theme and there wasn’t really much to go off of to really encompass the exact theme. I decide to shift gears, keeping Wild+Three but shifting the theme to a colour scheme of dark green, gold, white and leopard print, LOTS of leopard. (We all know I love my leopard print, so this worked out perfectly.)
I wanted to steer away from the classic ‘Jungle Theme’ birthday party and put a modern twist on it. I love the idea, but it just wasn’t screaming ‘EZRA’S BIRTHDAY.’ To start a vision board for an event or party that I am planning, I’ll always look for a colour scheme first, then from there I can find different foods, decor items and dessert table layouts that I want to incorporate or tweak so that it fits just right! In this case, Dark Green, Gold, White and Leopard. To make this Leopard theme really stand out, I made a special request that everyone come wearing some sort of leopard print on them! (This was SO fun – some people went ALL out!)
As I started to embark on the weeks ahead of assembling, creating and accumulating, I was reminded of something I had written way back in my post for Ezra’s first birthday, I’ll leave it below to help you out when you’re planning your next party!
“PLAN//PREP//PREVENT
After planning and writing everything down on paper, I went through the stores I would need to go to, compared prices and made a ‘To buy’ list, ‘To do’ list and a ‘To make’ list. Having it all jumbled on to one piece of paper would’ve driven me crazy. Having separated each task into three lists gave me some sanity in picking and choosing what I wanted to do that day and not be overwhelmed with a list 30 items long. I looked through the things I needed to make and chose to start on the most daunting task first. ” – Ezra’s First Flamingo
The day before Ezra’s WILD+THREE was a bit eery, everything was done, there was nothing to pick up or make and we were just putting things in it’s place to make for an easier set up in the AM. We had a few friends and family helping out with pickups of balloons and cake, but other than that we were able to sit back and relax before the chaos ensued.
DECOR
The bulk of the decor was completely our own doing, my husband was the mastermind behind the balloon garland and I put together the golden birthday jungle animals. We did however ask the talented Creations by Sonia to create some custom pieces for decor, labels and invitation and she nailed it! (I love using giant rolls of craft paper to create a theme related backdrop. you can paint it, cut it or just write on it!)
DIY PROJECTS
- Binocular Craft
- Balloon Animals (If you had a child at the party, you were the animal maker haha)
- Golden Jungle Animals + Party Hats
- White Wooden Backdrop : My husband made this piece for Ezra’s second birthday as the backdrop for her Tea for Two dessert table – I love how simple it is and how you can easily transform it to fit so many different themes!
FACE PAINTING
We set up a spot at the back of the yard that we knew would be in the shade most of the day so that our amazing Lisa(the beautiful face behind Rainbow Faces Face Painting) would not burn and her beautiful paints would not melt away! As you can see below, there was quite a demand for leopard print, but Lisa had also prepared to do a Zebra, Tiger and Unicorn with bright colours and glitter!
SNACKS // BEVERAGES
I really wanted to embrace the raw and whole fruits of the jungle so I decided to have tons of bananas, apples, watermelons and pineapples covering the table – I think the parents and children both loved this! I also had a really fun time coming up with different names for each of the food items in the trail mix bar and also other snacks on the table like ‘Giraffe Food’ or ‘Gorilla Lunch’ (KD that was supposed to be bananas). For beverages we had green coloured lemonade for ‘Swamp Water’ and ‘Crystal Falls’ for water.
The Trail Mix Bar was definitely an ‘A-HA’ moment for me. I was racking my brain on what fun ‘food’ could I serve for adults that wasn’t candy of Kraft Dinner, and then it came to me, Trail Mix! This also fit in perfectly with the theme.
DESSERT // TREATS // FAVORS
I wanted Ezra’s cake to be simple on the outside but SO fun on the inside so I thought of what she loved, strawberries and the colour red. Little Acres Home Bakery was amazing at capturing the exact vision I had of layers of strawberry throughout the cake and a simple flat white on the outside. I decorated the outside with green ferns and then on the top I had some smaller golden animals and a ‘3’ cake topper from Little Sprout Creations. Little Acres Home Bakery also created a beautiful custom set of cookies fitting the Wild+Three theme perfectly. Guests kept asking me if they were allowed to eat them because they were so beautiful!!
Kizzy’s Macaron’s are a staple for EVERY event that I plan, Kira does SUCH an amazing job at curating the perfect flavour and colour for every crazy vision I give her and she always goes above and beyond. As for the favors, those were another DIY that Creations By Sonia helped me to achieve! Small baggies filled with animal crackers – the perfect toddler goodie bag (I also thought of the parents when I was planning this one, that way they don’t go home with a bag of junk lol!)
We are so thankful for everyone who came out to celebrate our big WILD and THREE birthday girl. She had grown into such a character and has so much love to share, every time someone arrived at the party Ezra would throw her hands in the air, jump up for a hug and wished each person a happy birthday! (Still to this day she sings Happy Birthday when we are grocery shopping, at bed time and even when she’s on the potty.)
I hope you enjoyed every fine detail that went in to celebrating one of the brightest lights in my life! Please let me know if you try any of these DIY’s or have your own Wild+Three party – I would love to see what you create!
Take care and have fun creating,
XO Cass
Stumbling Grace 