ONE Happy Camper First Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated my baby Benjamin turning one! Because he is always happy and we love to camp as a family, I knew I wanted this birthday party theme months in advance. It came together really nicely, and was quite affordable, too, because most of the decor was stuff I already had. My oldest son had a camping themed birthday party several years ago, and it was a very different color palette and over-all aesthetic, but I still had a few mini battery-operated lanterns from that party! You can check out that birthday party here. We were blessed with really beautiful weather, which was wonderful, because I was really worried about the heat. I knew we wanted to have a campfire, so I held the party in the evening. I wasn’t sure how guests would like a later birthday party, but everyone had such a good time, the party went way past the time that I thought it would. It was wonderful! So if you need some ideas for you own one happy camper first birthday party, keep scrolling.

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The Invites

The last few years of throwing kid’s birthday parties, I just send a digital invite via text message. For years I mailed them, but this is just cheaper and easier. I still like to have cute special invites. I either design them myself on Canva, or order a template I like on Etsy. I ordered these adorable invites here.

I found this party set on Amazon, which was wonderful, because I normally do not like sets like this. I always build my own party with different paper goods from different stores, but this set was pretty perfect for what I was looking for. And it was on sale! I did realize, though, a few days before the party, that I was going to need more of everything, and wouldn’t get an amazon order in time. Woops! So I ended up getting compostable plates and cutlery, some green napkins, and clear disposable cups, and mixed it all in with this set.

Food Table

Because the party was in the evening, I served a full dinner. I kept the food as simple as possible, with little to no prep involved. I bought big tubs of baked beans from Sams Club, Amish style macaroni salad from Walmart, a veggie tray, hot dogs and buns and brats from costco. I ordered the cupcakes and smash cake from Walmart. Chips, popcorn, and fresh berries were from Costco. But I bought WAY way too much macaroni salad and beans. I guess way overestimated. Or maybe people didn’t eat it? Either way, I have enough pasta salad and beans to feed a football team. The only thing I “made” was so incredibly simple! I dipped marshmallows in melted chocolate and coated them in crushed graham crackers. The treat sticks were from Walmart and I cut them in half to get double the sticks. I made these a couple hours before the party because I didn’t want the marshmallows getting stale. These were a huge hit, not a single one was left!

I used camping pots and pans to hold the food, and last minute picked some Queen Anne’s Lace and mint from the front yard to put in a camping percolator for the food table. I also last minute decided to tape up some printed photos of the birthday boy above the table. It just seemed so empty. I also made two little felt pennants last minute with felt and iron-on letters I already had. I wish I had taken my time making them, but I think they turned out alright. I just tacked these up on the wall.

The Smokey The Bear sign, I already owned. You can find it here. I had picked up that vintage thermos at a garage sale this Summer for a couple bucks. Everything else we already had. If you are a camping family, a camping-themed party saves you from having to spend money on decor!

MENU

• hot dogs
• brats
• baked beans
• macaroni salad
• fresh strawberries and blueberries
• chips
• kettle corn
• smore’s pops
• cupcakes
• smores bar around the campfire
• sweet tea
• water
• lemonade
• sparkling water cans in the cooler

Drinks

We also had a large cooler filled with ice and sparkling waters and beer.

Decor

Besides the food table, I also had a small folding table in the corner of the room to hold the party favors and collect gifts. I used my trusty picnic basket as a riser (I use this picnic basket for SO many parties and gatherings!) The party set from Amazon came with two tablecloths, so I used one here and the other one on a table outside to eat at. I got these felt pennants from the Bullseye section at Target at the beginning of Summer or early Spring.

I made these little cupcake toppers by just printing these images out on cardstock, cutting them out, and gluing them to toothpicks. You can print the cupcake toppers here.

I got SO many compliments on the personalized balloons! These super cute unique balloons with sweet Benny’s face on them are from bigdotofhappiness.com. I filled them with helium the day of the party. I just love them so much ! My middle child has a birthday next month, and I plan to order some with his face, too. When the deflate, I plan to keep the balloons. They’re just too sweet!

Outside we set up our family camp tent and a little kids play tent that we’ve had for years. I put out a couple camp chairs, a stuffed fake campfire toy, and some camp plates and cups for the kids to play with.

We had two tables to eat at, which was definitely not enough, and I may need to borrow some more tables and chairs for our next party. I put our camping lanterns in the middle of the tables as a weight to keep the tablecloths down.

Favors

The favor bags were fun to put together. The bags came with that happy camper party kit, but I did need several more, so I used brown paper lunch bags as well. In the bags each child got a mini keychain flashlight, a camping themed silicone bracelet, two camping stickers, a camping twisty straw (currently unavailable on Amazon), a little bag of trail mix (from Costco), a carabiner, and a twig pencil. I added orange and yellow tissue paper to look like a campfire and fill the bag a bit.

Activities

I planned more games than we needed, but I think it’s always better to have some fun things planned, just in case.

I made a scavenger hunt for the kids and hid the items around the yard and house for them to find. It was really fun! You can print the scavenger hunt I made here.

I also printed out these personalized coloring pages from an Etsy shop and set out a few new boxes of crayons. But the kids were so busy running around outside, they didn’t want to sit and color. I ended up putting the coloring sheets in some of their favor bags to take home.

I had a marshmallow toss game, which was basically Bozo Buckets. Only a few kids played, but they had fun, and the prizes were camping stickers. The buckets were from the party section at Walmart.

The big hit was the fishing hole! This was a game I had already made for a book club party last year, so there was very little prep. I used hot glue to attach a small strong magnet to a string, and tied that to a stick. That was the fishing pole! Then I cut out a fish shape on transparent binder dividers, stuck a paper clip through it, and there’s your fish. I had a little kiddie pool with some water, and the kids used the magnet to fish, and dropped them in a little bucket. The kids just kept going back to that, over and over again.

We also had a campfire with a smores bar, that I think was the highlight of the party. The kids were so excited! I had classic Hershey chocolate bars, York peppermint patties, and Reese’s peanut butter cups for the different chocolates. I got the roasting sticks from Amazon, and we will definitely use these again.

The birthday boy

I found this shirt for the birthday boy on Etsy, and its the same print as the paper plates and napkins ! How cute is that??

For most of the party he wore his Junior Ranger hat, which is what he wears when we are outside in the sun all day. We got ours from a national park gift shop, but Amazon has something similar here.

When it was time to sing happy birthday, I put his personalized birthday crown on. I ordered from a small shop on Etsy. The crown turned out beautifully, but there was a bit on confusion when ordering- so make sure you double check what colors you are ordering.

This was one of my favorite parties I’ve thrown! I think everyone had a good time, and we ended up partying late into the night. I had glow sticks so I handed those out to the kids so we could see them better. I turned on the camping lanterns, and then we had the glow of the fire.

I highly recommend throwing a camping themed birthday party!