I have always loved Peter Rabbit and friends. As a child I read the books and (on special occasions) ate from a fancy Peter Rabbit cup and plate set. Then as a young adult I visited Beatrix Potter’s home ‘Hill Top’ in England. I even painted a Beatrix Potter themed mural on the wall of my children’s nursery. So it was no surprise that I ended up hosting a fun Peter Rabbit Party for my little ones’ early birthdays.

The decorations for these parties centred mainly around the dessert table and backdrop. For my son’s party I choose a colour palette of light blue, light green and white. I used these again for my daughter’s party, and also added in some pink and lemon. I covered the wall behind the dessert table with twisted streamers of crepe paper. Then I hung this birthday banner across the streamers. Along the length of the dessert table I ran a strip of green and white gingham fabric as a table runner. I put a bunch of cream flowers in a pale green enamel jug. The food signs sat in small glasses that I had wrapped in pieces of hessian. Finally I pulled out some of the Beatrix Potter books and stuffed toys we have in the nursery and put these on display.

We served a variety of hot finger foods once the guests had arrived. But the highlight was this fabulous veggie platter (Mr McGregor’s Garden!) made by my talented husband. He hollowed out a cabbage to use a a dip bowl, then surrounded it with a rainbow of vegetable sticks.

My lovely mum whipped up a batch of her delicious cupcakes but left them uniced. I divided a tub of store bought vanilla frosting into several dishes and tinted each a different colour. Then I put out a mix of sprinkles and chocolate drops and let the kids create their masterpieces. I had decorated plain noodle boxes with a simple bunny face and cotton ball tail for the kids to take their cupcake home in.

I gathered our supply of plastic fruits and veggies from the toy box. Each child took turns to throw as many as they could into our laundry basket. They had to land a certain number to make it through to the next round. We staggered the throw line depending on the children’s ages to give everyone a fair chance.

This final game was a real laugh. My teen-aged niece and nephew were both good sports and acted as our scarecrows for this relay game. The younger kids were divided into two teams. When it was their turn, each child would run up to their waiting “scarecrow” and grab an item of clothing from the nearby basket. It was a race to see which team could dress their scarecrow first. We just used a bunch of items from our dress up box like scarves, hats, jackets and sunglasses.

For both parties I made this very cute veggie patch cake from “The Australian Women’s Weekly More Cakes For Kids” book (2010). First I made a square cake and covered it in chocolate frosting. Then I sprinkled Milo powder over the top of the cake to represent dirt. Next I tinted white fondant pale green and wrapped strips of it around Ferrero Raffaelo white truffles to make cabbages. For the tomatoes I used more of the green fondant and jaffas. I couldn’t find orange lollies for the carrots so used some orange fondant instead, and made leaves out of green lolly snakes.

In keeping with the country life theme of Peter Rabbit, we served scones with jam and cream. We also put out a dish of fresh berries (quicker than preparing a fruit platter!). There were bowls of ‘bunny tails’ (marshmallows and white Ferrero Rocher truffles), flavoured milk in these small glass bottles, and store bought pink wafer stick biscuits. Simple but delicious!

For prizes in the games, I gave out seed packets. The carrot treasure hunt cards were traded for chocolates.

As for the party favours, each child had their decorated cupcake to take home. Then for one of the parties each child received a small chocolate bar wrapped in in vegetable printed paper, while guests at another party took home a carrot shaped cookie. Plus I was lucky to find a Lindt chocolate carrot to give to our gluten free guest! I think these only become available in the lead up to Easter so it was just good timing.