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My daughter turned 6 recently and all she wanted was to celebrate her birthday with her friends and her furry teddy bear friends.  A Teddy Bears picnic party was the perfect theme.

I fondly remember a teddy bears picnic birthday party I had in Primary School with my friends and my favourite bear Charlie so holding a birthday party for Amber with her friends and their favourite bears was a delightful way to celebrate her 6th birthday.

There are 6 essential ingredients for a beary happy Teddy Bears Picnic:

1. Teddy Bear Invitations

Five weeks before the party we made a list of Amber’s friends and sent out the invitations.  We decided to have the party over lunch time so we could have a picnic.  One of the most important parts of the invitation is to make sure your guests bring a bear.  It is also a good idea to remind your guests before the party so they don’t leave their cuddly friend at home.  One of Amber’s friends forgot to bring his bear along.  And even though we had lots of extra bears to share he wanted his own bear.  Luckily his Mum had time to go and pick his bear up so he could enjoy the party too.

2. Picnic Decorations

When I had my Teddy bears picnic in Primary School my Nan and Pa dressed up my parents lounge room with pot plants and  branches from their backyard.  All done to recreate the woods in my living room.  We also had some picnic rugs placed on the floor to complete the effect.

For Amber’s party we chose a red & white theme.  So red & white balloons and streamers fit the bill nicely.  I also made a table cloth and picnic rug from red and white material.  We set up our plastic tea set and plastic food for our bears guest and collected up all the bears from the kids bedrooms and placed the teddies around the room.

3. Games and activities with your bear

Now it comes to the best part of any party – the games!

• Create a birth certificate for each bear guest. When the guests arrived with their bears we decorated birth certificates.  We’d printed a certificate for each bear and we had rulers and the kitchen scales at the ready to record the bears vital statistics on the birth certificate.  We also had lots of stickers, pencils, scissors, textas, glitter and glue ready to help  make each certificate look beautiful.

• Treasure Hunt.  Before we started the party we printed and cut out three bears for each guest and wrote each guests name on the back of their 3 bears.  Amber then took great delight in hiding the bears around the house.  So when it was time, our guests were asked to hunt out the three bears  with their names on them.  Beware this did send the kids running all around the place.  Then with great squeals of delight each guest found their bears and then helped other people find their set..

• Create party hats for bears and your guests.  Before the party began we cut circles out of cardboard, using a small plate as the template.  Then cut the circles in half.  Each guest was given a half circle to write their bears name on and decorate it.  We provided plenty of stickers, wrapping paper to cut out, pencils, scissors, textas, glitter and glue. We then stapled the sides together to make a cone for the hat and stapled a piece of elastic on to the cone to help the hat stay on the bears head.

• Teddy Bear bob down.  This game is similar to musical chairs except when the music stops the kids and the bears need to bob down.  The last guest and bear to bob down goes out of the game.  Keep playing until the quickest person to bob down through all the rounds wins.

• Make necklaces for their bears.  We bought Cheerios (shop online and search 684757) and cut the string to size.  The kids threaded Cheerios on to the string and we tied the string together to make a necklace.  Some of the kids had time to make a necklace for their bears and themselves.  There was also alot of Cheerios eaten along the way.

• Decorate a biscuit in to a bear.  We took a Marie biscuits (shop online and search 329006), Chocolate Cake Mate Frosting (shop online and search 7785852), white chocolate buttons (shop online and search 8724558), milk chocolate buttons (shop online and search 5357585), milk chocolate bits (shop online and search 333852), smarties (shop online and search 9405840) and made a bear’s face. Simply place the biscuit down, squirt the frosting on the biscuit.  Place two white chocolate buttons on as the whites of the eyes.  Place a dob of frosting on two chocolate bits and place them on the white buttons to complete the eyes.  Then place 2 milk chocolate buttons on the top for ears.

• Coloring in. Kids also love coloring in and decorating.   Print out this cute teddy bear coloring in sheet and let your little guests put their creative spin on it. 

I always have a few stand by games on hand, just in case we have spare time. My stand by games for this teddy bears picnic were typical picnic games of ‘Egg & Spoon’ race and ‘Sack’ race. I had ping pong balls as the eggs. And used pillow cases for the sacks.  We didn’t have time for these games at Ambers party but a few eager kids wanted to stay and play so we ran a few races after the party ended.

4. Food to enjoy with your bear

We had honey sandwiches, Sushi, party pies (shop online and search 7791367), sausage rolls (shop online and search 5079030), fairy bread cut into Teddy bear shapes, mini cup cakes decorated with tiny teddies (shop online and search 6027746) on the top and teddy bear racing cars.

To quench our guests thirst I offer the kids a selection of the Pop tops.  And as I gave them out I wrote their names with permanent texta on the bottle so they know which is theirs.  I also always have water and plastic cups or bottled water (shop online and search 6103549) available throughout the party, so thirsty guests can quench their thirst at anytime during the party.  Some kids also prefer water to juice.

5. Birthday cake so your birthday wish can come true

I offered to make a my birthday girl a cake in the shape of a bear, but she is right in to Party Animals at the moment and she wanted an Ice Cream cake.  I think because her older brother had just had a Star Wars party and I’d made a Captain Rex helmet ice cream cake.  So I made a round ice cream cake and two muffin size cakes with Neapolitan ice cream and iced it with blue cream.  Froze it and decorated it with white cream and mini marshmallow clouds and icing rainbows.  I placed Party Animal bears on top of the clouds and sprinkled the cake with little decorated hearts (shop online and search 5206229) and placed a “6″ candle in one of the muffin sized cakes.

6. Thank your guests

Before all our guests left the party we got them and their bears in a group and took a photo that we would later send out as a thank you postcard.

To thank our guests for coming we’d prepared little lolly bags full of sweets and a pack of Tiny Teddies (shop online and search 7973455).  We attached this thank you note to each guest’s lolly bag.

Downloadable Teddy Bears Picnic Party Items

• Invitation
• Colouring in sheet
• Birth Certificate
• Treasure Hunt Bears
• Thank you cards

What are your essential ingredients for a beary happy teddy bears picnic?