A Reptile Birthday Party

We threw a reptile birthday party for our oldest son a couple of years ago. Scales and Tails of Utah came over, filled my house with snakes and lizards, and gave us a fantastic show. That was the beginning of my reptile party printables — the first of which was this invitation:

I love these. I’m so embarrassed about the ones I sent out for that party. Last minute mom threw something together at, well, the last minute. It was really, really bad.

Anyway, fast forward two years and now I have a growing line of reptile party decor — all featuring critters from Scales and Tails. And when my middle son turned 8 recently, he wanted a reptile bash to rival his brother’s. So I jumped at the chance to style his party with my own products. It was FUN! I put more photos in my Flickr photo stream if you love pictures 🙂 https://www.flickr.com/photos/28311975/

A lot of our guests hadn’t been to our house before, so I made sure everyone would know that this was it. I get my most odd-ball ideas when I’m trying to fall asleep, so here you have paper chain snakes leading the way to the front door. Why not? My kids liked it — and it’s something they could help with.

I set up the buffet table just off the entrance, just to get the kids excited.

The paper table runner works great here on the buffet table, but it’s also fun rolled down the center of a dining table for the kids to color on while they’re eating. We also wrapped Matt’s gift in it — because it’s actually wrapping paper. You can get it at Melinda Bryant Photo on Etsy 😉

The party favors were a lot of fun. I found some great wooden snakes at Oriental Trading Company, as well as the snakes in a can — but I added my own labels. The kids LOVED the snakes in a can.

This Michael Carr iguana was the perfect addition to our reptile buffet.

I found the cutest cake on Pinterest and knew it was one I could manage — and what I lacked in skill I made up for in frosting. But my cupcakes were a total failure. I guess frosting cupcakes is a skill I don’t have. I gave up on them two hours before the party and rushed over to The Sweet Tooth Fairy for something pretty.