I thought my teddy bear picnic parties were a thing of the past but my 7 year old decided that she would love this as her party theme and had already thought about the picnic food including pombears.

Teddy bears is such a great theme as there’s so much you can do with it but my challenge was to make it appeal to 8 year old girls.  I decided to make teddy bear head bands which seemed quite easy but in reality took ages – luckily my mother in law Norma was on hand with this one and managed to do the teddy bears share.  Then it was time to think about how the day was going to run and we decided it would be nice to walk into the local woods and put up a gazebo and buntin so heres where my dh came in very handy.

This party was definitely a collaborative effort.  When I was little I remember taking my teddy bear to St John’s Ambulance at the local fair and asking them to bandage him up.  Everyone thought it was so cute and I even ended up in the local newspaper.

That’s where the idea of a teddy bear hospital came in to play.  My parents run a jumble sale every week so had lots of unloved teddies that they could donate so we took them in the woods and asked all the children to choose a teddy to love and bandage up.  I also bought some really cute teddy bear t-shirts for the children to decorate using sharpie pens which they all loved.

Time seemed to go so fast despite this being the longest party I’ve ever done.  We walked into the woods, played in the teddy bears hospital, enjoyed the teddy bears picnic, played some party games on the grass then walked back.

When we got back all the children got changed into their pyjamas and snuggled up in the front room armed with popcorn and drinks to enjoy Paddington Bear the movie.

We all had such a fun time and it was probably the most cost effective party I’ve ever done as there was no room hire cost but thankfully we were lucky with the weather.