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| Bug juice with dragonflies on the straws |
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| Spider biscuits |
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| Snail puffs - tomato sauce and cheese on puff pastry, which we rolled up and squished to look like snails, then baked |
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| Butterfly sandwiches |
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| Grape caterpillars |
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| Ladybird savoury biscuits - I used cream cheese as a base/glue, then made the ladybirds out of cherry tomatoes and grapes, and dotted spots on the wings with black food colouring and a toothpick |
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| Marshmallow bees - I melted white chocolate and added powdered yellow food colouring, dipped the marshmallows in and then painted black stripes on |
The cake was a simple vanilla cake with green buttercream icing (Sophie had outgrown her food intolerances by then), that I layered and then decorated with fondant flowers and bought fondant nunus. The pink flowers on the top layer were saved from our wedding cake.
We also had a couple of extras scattered around - popcorn butterflies on the table (made from coloured popcorn in plastic sandwich bags, divided in half and secured with a clothes peg and with pipe cleaner feelers). And then on each plate (pictured, clockwise from right) there was butterfly blowers (bought from my local party shop), pipe cleaner/sucker spiders and a small bottle of bubbles with a cardboard flower between the handle and base. Yes, that's a teeny wooden ladybird on the flower :)
Décor was simple - I bought some cheap green fabric, tore it into strips and draped a couple of gazebos, with some plastic flowers for the nunus to buzz around.
... and then a couple of signs on the way down the driveway, just in case any of her nunu friends got lost along the way.
We also had a couple of nunu finger puppets up for adoption - I had made an assortment of felt finger puppets, all decorated differently and glued on wobbly eyes. It was great fun making them, but the adults enjoyed them more than the kids did!
I'm ashamed to say that the first party bags/favours I ever made were cute on the outside (there's another little wooden ladybird), but filled with cheap and nasty toys, stickers and sweets on the inside.
I had basic toys set out, including a water table with some toys inside, and then one planned activity - a bug dig. I hid lots of plastic nunus (butterflies and creepy crawlies) in a large bowl of chocolate instant pudding. My intention was for the kids to dish up some pudding (or moms dish up for their kids!) and then find the nunus as they ate it, but 2-year-olds get full really fast! Everyone mostly stood around the bowl and searched for nunus without dishing it up first - they started off with spoons and then the older kids quickly moved onto running their hands through the sweet gloop to find the hidden bugs. No one really ate it - but at least they enjoyed cleaning their dirty hands afterwards!
A couple of pictures of us enjoying the party:
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| Me and Charlotte the (pastel) bee, only 6 weeks old at the time |
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| The birthday Bug twirling in her ladybird outfit |
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| You can't really see it, but she was wearing a ladybird-coloured nappy (red with black spots) under her tutu. I printed the 2 onto a plain red shirt and sewed the tutu. She was holding one of the creepies from the bug dig, and yes, that's a bit of chocolate pudding on her face! |
