Woodland Birthday Party Ideas: Bears, Toadstools and Little Animals for an Autumn or Winter Birthday

Woodland is having a moment. Searches for "woodland" party decorations are up 300% in the UK this month, and it makes sense: it is the one birthday theme that looks better in October than it does in June. Bears, toadstools, foxes and fawns, a tablecloth the colour of a forest floor, and a cake with candles shaped like mushrooms. It suits a first birthday as well as a sixth, it works for boys and girls without anyone having to think about it, and nothing in it goes out of date. Here is how we would put a woodland birthday party together from the new Meri Meri ranges. 🌲

The woodland birthday party table starts with a bear 🐻

Every woodland birthday party needs one character on the plate, and the bear is the one children recognise from across the room. The Woodland Bear Party Plates x 8 are a brown kraft bear face with little ears, and the matching Woodland Bear Party Napkins x 16 sit folded beside them. For a bigger table, or a first birthday where most of the guests are grown-ups, the Bear Small Party Plates x 12 and Bear Small Party Napkins x 20 are the simpler version with a single drawn line for the face, and they come in bigger packs.

Above the table, string the Outdoor Adventures Party Garland, which is bears, pine trees, compasses and campervans on felt pennants, and stand the Bear Foil Balloon (30 inch) by the door. He is a proper brown bear on his hind legs, and he does not need helium.

Toadstools and mushrooms for a woodland birthday party 🍄

The toadstool is the bit of a woodland birthday party that photographs best, and it is also the easiest to do. The Honeycomb Mushroom Party Decorations x 10 are ten tissue honeycomb toadstools in red, pink and ochre that open out and stand on their own, so you can cluster them down the middle of the table or dot them around the cake. The Mushroom Party Plates x 8 and Fairy Mushroom Party Napkins x 16 are the toadstool-shaped tableware in the same pink and red, with little gold foil spots.

If you only hang one thing, hang the Mushroom Party Lanterns x 3. They are three paper lanterns shaped like toadstools in red, peach and yellow, and hung at different heights over the table they turn a kitchen into a forest clearing. The Liberty Mushroom Party Lanterns x 3 are the same shape covered in Liberty print, for a woodland birthday that leans a little more grown-up. On the cake, the Mushroom Birthday Candles x 6 are six little spotted toadstools on tall white stems, and they are the detail everyone asks about.

Little Animals: the softer woodland birthday party 🦊

For a first or second birthday, or for a child who would rather have a fawn than a bear, the Little Animals range is the gentler woodland birthday party. Fawns, foxes, geese, rabbits and hedgehogs wander through wildflowers on the Little Animals Large Party Plates x 8 and Little Animals Small Party Plates x 8, with the Little Animals Party Cups x 8 in pastel gingham and the Little Animals Large Napkins x 16 to finish. Lay it all on a yellow gingham cloth and it looks like a picnic in a storybook.

The Little Animals Party Garland Set is two garlands of the same animals with flowers, long enough to go along a mantelpiece and across the window. For the cake, the Little Animals Cake Toppers x 8 turn a plain iced sponge into the centrepiece, and the Little Animals Cupcake Kit x 24 toppers does the same for cupcakes if you would rather not cut anything.

Woodland birthday party bags, games and the shopping list 🌰

A woodland birthday party gives you the games for free. Send them on a bear hunt round the garden with a torch, make pine cone creatures with glue and googly eyes, and run decorate-a-cupcake with the Outdoor Adventure Party Cupcake Kit x 24, which has bears, trees and tents on the toppers. For the party bags, the Folk Woodland Temporary Tattoo Sheets x 2 are foxes, deer and stars in a folk print, and the Ladybird Surprise Balls x 3 are a party bag in themselves, with little treats hidden in the layers. A few Red Ladybird Party Napkins x 16 on the table tie the ladybirds in.

Pick one look or mix them. The bear plates with the toadstool lanterns overhead is the combination we would choose for a party in November, when the light goes early and the lanterns come into their own.

Shop the woodland birthday party 🛒

Everything here is in our Meri Meri Woodland Party collection, with the fawns and foxes in Little Animals and the bears and campervans in Adventure Party. Free UK delivery over £40 and next-day delivery on everything in stock.