Girls Camping Themed Birthday Party

Savannah loves camping. Brett takes the kids camping several times a year. So far I haven’t been able to go since we always have a baby at home, but once Josie is a little bit older I’ll be joining them as well. Savannah decided she wanted a Girls Camping Themed Birthday Party, but with the weather in Chicago in March, we convinced her that the party would be best as an indoor camping party. We set up our HUGE tent in the basement, put a bunch of white twinkle lights on top and the girls got to sleep under the ‘stars’. It was perfect! I thought I would share some of the details with you today…….

Girls Camping Themed Birthday Party

So here are the invitations that we sent out for Savannah’s Girls Camping Themed Birthday Party. I ordered these from Minted.com and I just think they are the cutest. You can read more about the invitations in a previous post found HERE.

So I had originally bought all this cute, flower decor for Savannah’s party. I figured that she would still want it to be girly even though it was camping themed. Wrong. Pretty much 90% of what I bought went back to the store. Savannah had a clear vision of what was in her head for her party. That’s what I get for shopping for party decor without the party girl herself. Luckily I was able to use a lot of what we already had in the house as well as a few things that I picked up from Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree store. I found this sweet sign at Hobby Lobby and thought it was perfect for our entryway. I got out some faux greenery that I use around the house for Christmas to make it look a little more outdoorsy.

I already had this wreath hanging on the front door, so I just wrote Camp Savannah on a little chalkboard that I had in my studio. I added the stick trees so that it sort of matched the sign in the entry. Savannah thought is was really neat to have her name on the door. I simply set the chalkboard inside the wreath and it stayed put just right.

Our new dining room table can seat 12 which was perfect since we had 12 girls at the party. I added two chairs from the kitchen, but everyone had a seat at the table. Savannah and Matilda got to sit at the heads of the table since Savannah was the birthday girl and Matilda is her sister.

I hung up a burlap pennant banner in the doorway between the dining room and the great room. I found this one at Hobby Lobby but you could certainly make your own. I also had a burlap table runner going down the center of the table. I had two tall galvanized metal buckets that I’ve used for various things. You might remember seeing them for the first time about 5.5 years ago at Matilda’s Summer Garden Party 1st Birthday. They have come in handy for all sorts of party decor. I simply placed a bunch of branches inside each one for a more rustic look.

The wood bark looking candles and candleholders are normally on the dining room table (both from World Market) as are the twig looking balls in the wooden bowl. So I just placed the burlap runner underneath and added some additional faux greenery (that we usually have out for Christmas) as well as some wooden acorns (that I use for fall decorating). I also picked up three bags of river rocks from the Dollar Tree store and sprinkled them around the table. The little lanterns with candles in them are also usually used as decor in other parts of the house.

Savannah made the place cards for all of her friends and decided where everyone would sit. This worked out well because then there was no fighting over who was going to sit where and the girls knew that they would sit in the same exact spot of dinner, dessert, crafting and breakfast. We placed a gold charger (that I’ve had for years) at each persons place with a kraft paper tray that they used for their dinner.

I also picked up some ladybug and butterfly headbands that we placed at each girls seat from Dollar Tree. This was a fun thing for them to wear at the party and was a favor to take home as well.

Brett (being the creative daddy that he is), came up with this really fun fishing game for the girls. He collected 12 sticks around the yard to use as each girls fishing pole (and later as their marshmallow roasting stick). He attached a string and hot glued a magnet at the end of the string. Then he taped paper clips to all sorts of things, but mostly to lots of pieces of candy. The girls would use the magnets at the end of their poles to connect with the metal paper clips and ‘reel’ in their candy. He also put a bunch of other random things down there so they had to be strategic in trying to get the candy. It was great fun and he is such a good daddy for coming up with this game. Savannah LOVES fishing with daddy so this was really sweet. Everyone had fun. The only hiccup was that a few girls got too close to each other and some of the magnets connected and twisted their fishing lines. So my advice would be to make sure everyone is spread out far enough apart so they don’t get tangled.

We also did a fun, easy and inexpensive craft at the party. The girls created these Fabric Woven Totes. If you missed my previous post, you can get the full instructions on this craft by clicking HERE.

If you recall from a few weeks ago, I shared the recipe and how-to for the Campfire Ice Cream Cookie Cake that I made for Savannah’s Girls Camping Themed Birthday Party. You can get the full recipe by clicking HERE.

Before the girls watched a movie, I had set up a make your own trail mix bar. I didn’t get any pictures of that one (it was a little busy with 12 girls at our house), but we had all sorts of things like popcorn, m & m’s, marshmallows, banana chips, yogurt raisins, pretzels and more! They made their own trail mix to eat during the movie. Brett also took them outside to roast marshmallows and make s’mores around our campfire. There were quite a few sweets at the party, but you only turn 8 once, right?

So all the girls slept in the basement in the tent with twinkle lights on top. I’m not really sure exactly how much sleep they really got, but I know they all had a magical, fun time!