20958

Three Little Pigs Party -3yr- Decorate Your Shirt

January 2010

Laurel in Carpentersville, IL  USA

Honorable Mention

My daughter Faith chose her favorite story The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf for her 3rd birthday party theme. 

INVITATIONS:  I am a big fan of photo invitations, so I had one designed and reprinted on 5x7 photo paper that had a brick backdrop and 3 little pigs and a wolf.  I had a photo of Faith with her hands raised making a wolf snarl inset in a house and the invitation began, Come watch Faith huff and puff and blow her 3 candles out. (www.ProPhotoCards.com). I used 6 x 9 invitation-style envelopes and printed (Microsoft Word clip art) 3 pigs on the front with a you're invited to make it a little more personal.

ATTIRE:  For her birthday attire, I took a denim jumper and painted 3 pigs on 1 side and a wolf puffing on the other side and wrote Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? She wore a pink shirt underneath.  She was dressed in theme!  For party hats  each child received a felt pig hat (purchased from Michael's craft store).  That made for an adorable group picture! 

DECORATIONS: I put her recent 3-year old portrait on the table beside her cake with a caption at the top of the frame reading, This Little Piggy is 3!  I found a few stuffed pigs at the Dollar store and placed them around the table & cake.  The table was set in pink and I used THE PIG themed party ware (BirthdayExpress.com) including the big pig helium balloon! 

CAKE: I made a 13x9 cake (removed from the pan & set atop a gift-wrapped box) frosted entirely in green. I purchased 2 Sara Lee frozen pound cakes cut 2 houses from 1 and 1 from the other & covered with frosting.  These are very firm & easy to decorate.  Each house received a wafer cookie front door. 

The straw house was finished in yellow (colored) coconut; the stick house was decorated with stacked thin pretzel sticks, and the brick house was adorned in red licorice Nibs cut in half. (Note:  These were made about a week in advance - wrapped and stored in the freezer).  Each house was set atop the cake and I added a graham cracker crumb path that ran to each of the 3 houses. 

At the corner of the cake, I heavily frosted a sugar cone to look like an evergreen tree.  I set a 2 pig figurine (purchased on Ebay) in front of each house and a 2 wolf figurine (E-Bay) hiding behind the tree.  I also served for dessert a pig ice cream ball. I made the pig-faced cookies (www.tasteofhome.com) which is basically a pink frosted cookie  cut a marshmallow in half and used for the snout.

Tiny M&M's were used for the eyes and nostrils and the corner of pink wafer cookies (cut in a triangle) were set on top for the ears.  I attached each pig face cookie (with a dab of frosting) to a scoop of strawberry ice cream adding a licorice curl tail.  I kept these in the freezer until just before serving time. 

ACTIVITIES:   As soon as the kids arrived, we went to the basement for our craft activity.  Prior to the event, I purchased white t-shirts during a sale and pre-washed them (using NO fabric softener).  Since the majority of the guests were about 3 years old, I pre-stamped a pig (Herrschers.com for the stamp) on each shirt in pink fabric paint and outlined it in black and let it dry.  Each child received a shirt and a craft smock (Oriental Trading) and was able to paint a design or background on their pig shirt. 

I had sponge stamps, and stencils along with wells of fabric paint colors and brushes.  A couple of the older kids (12+) got a plain t-shirt to design as they pleased.  I hung the shirts up and they were dry by the time the party was over and they were able to take their art-wear home.  I had drawn & watercolor-painted a scene on large white roll paper of the 3 little pigs/big bad wolf.  Not only did it serve as a great backdrop, but also it was used to play pin the tail on the wolf. I also had a pull-string Pig-ata (birthdayexpress.com) which was a huge hit. 

PARTY SNACKS: Some examples of what the menu consisted of were Pigs in a Blanket (crescent covered hot dogs) for the kids, and wolf meat (beef) sandwiches, & pink piggy punch.  At end of the event each child received a giant-sized farm animal coloring/sticker book (from the Dollar Store).  On the inside cover I attached a (clip art) picture of a pig that said, Thank You For Hamming It Up With Me At My 3rd Birthday Party.  Hogs & Kisses, Faith.  I had pig thank you notes and enclosed not only a wallet-sized portrait photo of Faith but also a sheet of pig stickers (BirthdayExpress.com).

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