DIY Wild Kratts Themed Birthday Party -- Product Review

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to the products for your convenience but do not receive anything if you buy from them.

I have been promising a post about our Wild Kratts themed birthday party and here it is. The rest of the week I will be doing posts on New Year Resolutions and products that are helping with mine. But with New Year's come Hazel's birthday party. It is always over Christmas vacation, but this year we decided to have her party with her school friends after the vacation and we discovered many more people come when it is not on vacation!! But first our invitation.

We bought A2 foldover cards in black and fuchsia A2 envelopes and a roll of sparkle fuchsia wrapping paper. We punched out circles with a three inch punch and a one inch punch from the wrapping paper and glued them onto the front of the card to look like the Wild Kratts logo. On the inside I used some of the wording and pictures of the printable invitation at PBS Kids. Their color scheme did not match mine completely so I made some changes. Hazel helped with the gluing and lining the envelopes. I printed out pink and black animal prints as a full pages and used my envelope liner template for the liners. It ends up that Wild Kratts is a favorite show of most of Hazel's friends as well, so we ended up with ten guests!! Our biggest kid party ever!!

Luckily I have Oriental Trading to help me make her parties amazing!! This one was no different!! I have been collecting animal things for awhile knowing she really wanted a Wild Kratts themed party. Anytime I found something on sale or clearance I picked it up. Our plates were some of those and we also had Zoo Pal cups that I bought ages ago (the ones with lids and straws). Unfortunately they are discontinued now. I loved having those cups at parties with young children. Hazel picked out the butterfly birthday napkins at Dollar Tree as well as dolphin plates for the cake. (I somehow didn't get a picture of those plates.)

On our table was a centerpiece of some stuffed animals and our Tortuga. Our Tortuga was made from Color Your Own 3D Turtles. Hazel colored it and I added the windows over the eyes to make it more like the Tortuga. Hazel loved it!! Above the table was my paper pom pom monkey. I am very proud of this one and will be sharing a tutorial for it in the future since we have several monkey posts coming up this month!! We hung it with our pink zebra striped balloons that I bought on clearance as well as the banner on the china cabinet and a creature power disc garland that Hazel put together for me. I punched the creature power discs out with the three inch punch and then punched out some scrapbook papers with the scalloped three inch punch and she used a tape runner to put them together and onto the ribbon. I found the small creature power discs a few different places on line and have pinned all of the locations in my Wild Kratts Board.

Now when the kids arrived they came into the entrance and the larger garland was there. These creature power discs came from the PBS site as well as My Little Corner (I sized them to be five inches like the ones on PBS). Hazel got them out for me. Oh, and we included the Flat Kratt printable as well. I taped them onto the ribbon after she cut them all out.

Once the kids got off their coats and shoes (it was pouring out). They came up to our living level and we gave them their own creature power pin and bag of creature power discs and a passport. I put each child's name on the passport and printed one for Hazel with all the information and a picture. Here is my Word template to personalize them.

To make the pins we cut out five inch circles of black felt. (I used one of the five inch creature power discs as my template.) Then we cut a circle a bit bigger than the three inch discs out of felt and clear plastic (I bought some at Joann's that got put away and then we ended up using a bag that sheets came in) and three one-inch circles out of colored felt. Hazel chose pink, purple, green and red as our colors. We used washi tape to attach the plastic to the felt leaving a portion open to slide in the disc. Then we glued the circles to look like the paw print and we glued a safety pin on the back using a small piece of black felt to hold it in place. After the glue dried we pinned the pins to little canvas bags (I found on clearance) and put in them creature power discs that went along with the games we were playing and the masks that were in the favor bags. Most of the kids loved having the pins!! Then the kids went to play the dolphin ring toss game that we got this summer from Oriental Trading. They put on their dolphin creature power discs to play. We also had two crafts set up. Most of the kids tried to do a harder craft that needed more explaining, but we got a few fun ones. Once everyone got here the pizza also was delivered. After all Jimmy Z. is always eating pizza on the show. The kids sat at the table and had pizza and apple cider. Then as some finished sooner than others we started playing Pin the Tail on the Fox Game.

The game came with eight tails that punched out of the bottom of the page. I cut the bottom out and photo copied three of the tails to have eleven. I wrote the names of the kids on the tails and put a strip of running tape on each one. They did not stick well. I should have used a stronger tape I guess. The kids had fun with the fox blindfold that comes with the game as well. And yes they had fox discs for this game!

Our last game was a animal relay race. Hazel and I made this up. We decided on some animals for the kids to use their creature power discs. They were suppose to act like the animal for a short distance and tag a team member. We had six team members. It would have been better to have this outside. I made creature power discs for each animal and put them in a bag and had each kid pick one out. I used the discs at In My Corner for my background and just hid the animals on them and printed the ones I wanted. My printable game is for private use only and not to be sold. If you would like to share it please send them back here!! Our game ended up being a bit chaotic.

We put the kids in a circle and opened our pinata!!  I made our pinata as the logo paw print. I used a big balloon and paper mache newspapers around it. Then I covered it in Hot Pink Jumbo Streamers. I always get the jumbo roll but always have a lot extra. I guess I should learn to just get the regular package when making a pinata. I made tissue paper pom poms for the three small parts of the paw print. Simply cut the pieces and use eight layers and fold them in accordion style. Secure in the middle with a string--I used pipe cleaners and then slowly open in each direction. I attached them to a wooden dowel I put through the top of the pinata using pipe cleaners and also put a pipe cleaner to hang it. I did not plan on having the kids break it since we were inside so I left the top open and easy to pour out the toys. The pinata was full of animals I found on clearance and Elephant Squirters, Elephant Flat Whistles, Insect Finger Puppets, Rain forest Friends Finger Puppets, Jungle Animal Finger Puppets, and Magic Worms.

Then we made Zoo Animal Wooden Necklaces.  I loved that these necklaces had clasps and the clamped ends (like shoe laces) to make the beading easier. I tied one half of the clasp onto each string before the party. One of the other moms and I helped the kids finish their necklaces off with the other half of the clasp. Somehow our order came with extra monkeys and no lions, but the kids did not care or know. Hazel mentioned one of her friends wore his necklace to school the next day.

After the necklaces it was time for cake. Hazel wanted her usual strawberry cake. This year I worked the day before so I used a cake mix. We used chocolate frosting since our color scheme was somewhat pink and black. I then used pink frosting to put on the paw print and write "Happy Birthday Hazel" on it. Then we found some pink zebra striped heart decorations and animal crackers for the top. Plus we had pink zebra striped candles. 

It definitely looked homemade, but Hazel loved it! After that it was time for gifts. We also had fun favor bags!! I used Medium Black Craft Bags and our sparkly pink paper and punches.  

I printed out the Wild Kratts favor labels from PBS on shipping labels with the addition of Hazel's Birthday Party on the bottom and we put the labels on the back of the bags. The bags were filled with two Wildlife Pencils, Butterfly-Shaped Folding Fans, Continents and Animals Sticker Scenes, an animal mask I bought on clearance and Dollar Tree solar animals, and double sided Wild Kratt bookmarks that I printed and Hazel glued together. .

If I had it to do again, I would put their names on the favor bags and give them out at the beginning. We found many crafts and pinata prize bags left here.

Now we also had some more decorations. For example I used the Pink Cheetah Print Tablecloth as a background for a photo area. I cut it in half and covered each of the French doors with half. Then I hung a homemade paper vine. It is made of brown paper bags (I used ones for wrapping paper rolls) and twisted them up and then taped green tissue paper leaves on. The hardest part was keeping it hung. Of course the only pictures I got were after the party with Hazel showing off her new panda bear that was a gift. We also had a photo booth with a simple black tablecloth and sparkly pink rosettes for the logo. I used ceiling hooks to hang these rosettes.

I also had various rosettes on the windows on the back or the room. These windows have no window covers so they were the perfect place to hang them. Each rosette had an animal theme: butterfly, hedgehog, jungle animals, hummingbirds, and foxes. Then on the door coming into the family room there was a leopard print with the birthday certificate. I printed Hazel's information on it after printing the certificate. Here is my Word template.

The door to the family room was also decorated with llamas, owls and foxes from craft kits from Paper Source. We bought the owl and fox kits in the post Christmas sale and just didn't decorate them with the Christmas embellishments.

The parents who stayed were entertained by Steve in the living room (except the one mom who helped me who also volunteers in Hazel's classroom and has a younger child who wanted her mommy near her). We put out crackers and cheese and fresh fruit for the adults to enjoy. 

Now it is time to write thank you notes. I used the Wild Kratt thank you note as the front of a post card and then did an easy fill-in the blanks for Hazel to write her own thank you notes. Here is a generic copy to download with no date on it. These are to be used for personal use only and cannot be sold. If you would like to share them, please send people here to download them. I am going to use the pink cheetah tablecloth to line the envelopes for Hazel. 

That is our Wild Kratts themed party.I hope the Kratt Brothers would approve! The kids and adults had a blast!! For more Wild Kratts posts check out: Wild Kratts DVDs Review & Craft, Groundhog Masks Inspired by the Wild Kratts with Free Pattern, Origami Zoo, 20 Furry Tales Review, Where You Go I Go Review with Craft, Mini Knitted Woodland and Safari, and Make Your Own Zoo.