Twins Camping Themed Birthday Party

For my twins 5th birthday we had a Camping Themed Birthday Party and I realized, a full year later, I never posted it here.  It was such a fun party and before I share all the details of their 6th Birthday Carnival I thought I better share all of the details from this super fun party last year.

Deciding on a theme for boy/girl twins can be a challenge especially as they get older and have very different interest and opinions about what they like.  As we discussed what kind of party they wanted and I started to throw out a few suggestions for themes like carnival, zoo, bowling and camping they unanimously and enthusiastically yelled “Camping, we want a CAMPING party!” Done.  My kids love camping and incorporating all the things they love about the great outdoors would be easy, plus I had recently found the perfect park for a camping themed party.

My friend Rebekah from A Blissful Nest created the perfect mix of modern meets rustic camping themed party printables for our party and I set to work to creating a creative camping themed birthday party.

I used vintage tackle boxes to create a Make Your Own Trail Mix station, which is always a hit with the kids.  We did this the previous year at our Hansel and Gretel party and my twins requested it again for their camping party.

You can’t go camping without having s’mores, but a ton of little kids with sharp sticks and an open flame didn’t seem like the best idea.  So I made s’mores in a jar and jumbo s’mores marshmallows on wooden skewers.  For the adults we served dutch oven cherry cobbler, this dessert is one of my favorite things about camping!

One of the kids wanted chocolate and the other vanilla so I ended up doing a chocolate cake and vanilla cupcakes.  I took a store bought cake and jazzed it up with a mini tent, flag and camp fire.  I used the cupcake toppers from A Blissful Nest for all of the vanilla cupcakes and put them on wood slice pedestals.  We had to balance out all of those sweets so we used the giant stone grill at the park and grilled hot dogs for everyone.

The kids would have been happy as could be just climbing the trees and running around the wooded park, but of course I had to have a few fun planned activities.  I set up a Camp Crafts table and at each place setting there was a small kraft brown gable box which was filled with camp inspired activities.  Inside each box was a rock with supplies to decorate a pet rock and supplies to create and decorate wooden necklaces.

Mini clipboards with wood pencils held our Nature Scavenger Hunt and the kids split off to see who could find everything on their list first.  They were given white paper lunch sacks to collect the items and everyone who brought back their bag received a prize.

Once everyone returned with their scavenger hunt goodies, they could take a turn fishing in our camp party stream.  I used a scrap of blue fabric, cut fish out of patterned cardstock and made bamboo fishing poles with magnets attached to the end of the string for our little fishing game.  Once the kids caught a fish they could pick a prize.

In addition to all the activities, we set up A-frame tents for the kids to play in.  My husband build a simple frame with 1×2 boards and wooden dowels and I stapled fabric to them in the party colors.  There is a fantastic little fire ring with wooden stumps at the park and while we weren’t having a fire the kids had lots of fun pretending.

Before our guest headed home we gave them their own s’mores in a box to enjoy later. I used clear boxes from Bloom Designs Online and added the custom labels from A Blissful Nest for a super easy and fun party favor.

This camping themed birthday party was so much fun!  The weather was perfect, the kids loved running around, exploring, climbing trees and all of the sweet and sticky treats…it was just like the real thing!

Even if you aren’t a fan of roughing it and camping in the woods, this party theme is sure to be a hit!  I’d love to hear what you think of a camping themed party and what things you would have added to make it an extraordinary event.