Axel turned three this past June. His request for a gnome cake wasn’t surprising. The kid would live outside on a diet of homegrown strawberries and water from the hose if we let him. He gets such a thrill tending to his gnome garden each day. So, a gnome-garden birthday theme it was.

I’ve included some details and photos below about the cake, favors, decorations, food, and crafts. The party was so much fun to put together!

CAKE
What’s a party without cake!? I ordered the cake from Cakabakery West. I’m so glad I did––it looked adorable and tasted SO good. I knew if I didn’t get everything together at least the cake would be on point.

FAVORS
Party favors are always my favorite part of planning a party. I love using them as decorations and then sending the items home with guests. I was so excited when I found these adorable gnome crayons! I spotted them on Anthropologie, but got them for a much better deal on Amazon. I gathered some chocolate lady bugs, a menagerie of plastic insects, tiny terra cotta pot kits (dollar isle at Target), and some twig colored pencils. The favors were a hit!

FOOD
I kept the food super simple–brats, hot dogs, and a couple salads. The fun food items included “mushroom caps” that were actually just mini babybel cheese wheels. I used straws to punch out circles to create the polka-dot mushroom. It was super easy! I also used my favorite 10 compartment galvanized container to hold different little forest/garden inspired munchies. This included pretzel sticks (twigs), Bugles (gnome hats), fish crackers (fish), and my favorite––chocolate mushrooms. I found these chocolate mushrooms at World Market. They’ve been a favorite of ours for a while now––they taste really good!  At the last minute I decided to have some grown up punch which I called “fairy fizz”. It was made with Prosecco and grapefruit juice.

DECORATIONS
Axel and I hit the jackpot one afternoon at Hobby Lobby–all their gnome and garden items were on sale for 50% off. I found some green burlap to cover the tables and then used moss, bark, gnome figurines, mini terra-cotta pots, garden gloves, garden tools, potted plants, etc. to decorate the table. (I basically scrounged around the house looking for anything garden-like.) Our gnome garden party wouldn’t have been complete without this giant gnome balloon! He is still floating around our house half inflated…yes, kinda creepy.

 

CRAFTS
The two crafts we did were mushrooms and gnomes. They’re pretty self explanatory. The mushrooms are different sized popsicle sticks and red and white polka dotted muffin liners that were folded in half and glued to the stick. I found some garden-ish stickers that the kiddos added to their mushrooms. The gnome craft is a wooden spoon (or use a wide popsicle stick) with a triangle piece of felt for the hat (I cut these ahead of time).  Then half of a cotton ball glued to the stick for a beard. Add eyes, mouth, and shirt with markers. To keep the kids entertained I ordered this mushroom piñata and pulled out some fun lawn games.

I think that about sums it up! My little gnome had a great day–and that’s what really counts! As always, if you have questions please feel free to leave comments or email me at lexi@inthehutch.com. I’d also love to hear what birthday themes you’ve done or plan to do!

Oh! One more thing here is my pinterest board with more gnome-inspired birthday ideas! And if you’d like some more birthday bash ideas take a peek at when little Tonto Turned One here.

 

Photos by Callie Ann Photography