I love parties. My husband loves the Lord of the Rings. How did I decide on a Hobbit party when I can’t even stay awake an hour into the movies? WELL, my favorite part of those movies has always been the SHIRE. Could it be because it is in the first 20 minutes of the film? Possibly. My simple brain can’t handle complicated plot lines, blue filtered battling/action sequences or keep track of too many characters with unusual names, but it has always appreciated the tranquility and simplicity of the green pastured Hobbiton.
That and those Hobbits know how to party!
Dancing, music, food, fun, speeches, paper lantern decorations, Squeeeeee!!! That totally caught my attention and excitement watching the film with the hubs this time around (or my attempt to watch it). And in that moment was born the idea that it was absolutely NECESSARY to celebrate our birthdays in Hobbit style (our birthdays are one day apart, or I guess technically he’s exactly a day short of a year older than me. We have had joint birthday parties every year since we started dating. This is our 6th year. I know. Sappy cuteness.)
The best and most surprising part about putting this party together was the keen interest and involvement the Mr. suddenly seemed to have about the party. I’m the party girl, he usually (typically reluctantly) just goes with it. But not this time around. This was a LOTR party. You should have seen him the night before the party whipping up Lembas Bread and seed cakes as if he were trying to save middle earth from starvation. 
He seriously went NUTS with the food part of it. It was utterly awesome. Which left me some time to do a bit of decorating. Here is a great tutorial for paper lanterns that I used. Here is a download of patterns I used to cut the shapes:
[Download not found]
You may have gotten hints from this and this and other posts that I’m quite cheap, or we’ll say.. resourceful. Here is a pennant banner that I came up with using wrapping paper that I had around.
Some signage to welcome guests… Here is the DOWNLOAD.
Download “speak friend and enter” speak-friend-and-enter.pdf – Downloaded 1818 times – 2 MB
This was fun. We thought it proper that we use mugs for the drinks but we didn’t have enough in our stash to serve the masses, so we headed to Deseret Industries (thrift store) and bought LOTRish looking mugs. Thrice washed and rinsed, it became the drink holder for our guests and the party favor. Here are the tags I designed for the mugs. It also serves as a way to label them with names during the party. Here is the download
Download “Hobbit party Tag” hobbit-party-tag.pdf – Downloaded 1302 times – 96 KB
The Lembas Bread has a hit! It was cute to even hear our little ‘hobbit’ two year old request, “Mo Lembas peeze” after he gobbled piece after piece. It was quite the delight of my LOTR loving hubs. Here is the lembas bread recipe used.
It would be tricky to have a Hobbit party without Bilbo’s favorite snack! Seed Cakes. Here is the recipe we used.
Food, food and even more food! Ahh, everything was so so delicious. Did I mention the husband went crazy with the food?? He did amazing, if I say so myself. The Hobbit’s delight (top right corner of picture series above) was my favorite…Bacon and mushrooms, how could you go wrong?? Here is the recipe used.
I There was a little little corner set up to let the Hobbit ladies make some sassy hair garlands. I hung up some instructions that explained how to make a tissue paper flower, here is the link.
I was more than excited to see our good friends go all out with their costumes!! They looked specular don’t you think?!?!
Not only that but they even surprised us with our very own Lembas Bread pouches to take on our adventures!!! Can you believe my friend MADE these??? HOLY AMAZING. She’s so creative. Here is a tut.
Here is the download for the ‘Happy Birthday’ Signage (without our names of course)
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Here is the cake. Nothing special, just used a cake mix and this frosting. I decided this is my new favorite frosting recipe!
Happy Birthday to us! YAY!!!!
Little hobbit man helping blow out candles.
Can’t have a hobbit party without fireworks! Good thing I had some sparklers stashed around…
Paper lanterns at night.
And we even had (borrowed) a fire pit to cozy up and sing us some LOTR songs. Ooooh, it was so fun!
I’m happy with the way everything turned out, for a hubby that helped make it happen and friends that made it simply AWESOME. Thanks!!!
Checkout more party ideas and printables on this bloggity.
In your writing, you said you were cheap, um, wait, that was resourceful, wasn’t it? I would say that you were being thrifty, as the hobbits with their mathoms. Also, you are blessed to have such a devoted group of friends. Keep them close to you, and care for them always.