Sunday, March 16, 2014

Construction Birthday Playdate

My son turned two and he loves trucks and we love having friends over...so we decided to have a construction themed Birthday party. A Birthday party with a handful of toddlers is really more like a play date with food and decorations. I had a great time decorating for this party. I didn't plan any activities since at this age the kids just like playing with toys together. I kept it small so as to limit the cost of food and favors. For his first birthday we invited almost everyone we knew, which was fun, but not something we would do every year. This time we just invited his close friends, who are his age and he plays with regularly.

  
In the entryway leading to our front door I put a disposable (although I will reuse it) tablecloth on a card table.my sister bought the plastic hard hats and vests for the kids and this made it more exciting for the kids as they came to the door. I found stickers at Hobby Lobby that I used to write their names and then put on each helmet with their vest.
They all looked adorable in their vests and hard hats.
 
I took Mason Jars and wrapped yellow streamers around the mason jars and painted tools on them to label the silverware. The napkins and orange cones were from Hobby Lobby. I had the white plates leftover from Thanksgiving so they didn't cost anything. I bought the small black plates from Party City because I thought some people might want smaller plates. I put all of this in an easy foil pan so the mason jars didn't get knocked down by any little hands reaching up on the table.
 I used some of my sons trucks as decorations. I bought the small silver tubs the food is in, but I didn't mind buying them because I think I will use them again at other events. I used some paper I had and index cards and drew the trucks that are on the food labels.
Before I colored in the trucks for the labels I copied them and cut them out to make coloring sheets for the kids favor buckets we made.
I used a cupcake stand from another party and spray painted it black. I wanted to make cupcakes...but it didn't happen with all that I had going on so I bought some from Publix. I had thought these cupcake papers would fit around the cupcakes, but they didn't. I will just have to use them for something else.
 Pretzel logs!

 Clementines for boulders!

Doughnut holes for rocks
Chocolate covered donuts for Tires! (I also wanted to make these homemade...but no time...and as my husband says to me with a lot of my ideas...that would have been crazy.)
Refueling Station: Drinks (Drinks not shown, forgot to get a picture with them all set up.)
Orange truck balloons from Hobby Lobby. The only trouble with these balloons is it is hard to tape the balloons to the furniture without the trucks being upside down.
I found these great brown rolls of paper at WalMart that I used to make all the signs. This way I could cut them into different sizes and paint what I needed on them.

I made the Happy Birthday sign on the brown paper, I then painted the truck silhouettes and taped them onto the sign. I hope that I will be able to use the sign again and tape different things on them depending on the theme of the party.
Yellow and Black Streamers were from Party City.

 I painted the brown paper orange and cut out and painted the Dig In sign. (I wish I had made the words bigger and the perfectionist in me disliked it every time I looked at it..but it is not a big deal.) I had this disposable black plastic table cloth I saved from my husbands birthday party a couple years ago. I taped it to the table so it wouldn't move. Using Acrylic paint I painted a road on the tablecloth.

I bought the yellow buckets for the party favors from Party City. Inside I put the small truck coloring sheets I made, crayons, bubbles, stickers and a small plastic truck. 
The caution tape is from Hobby Lobby, but I saw in my research you can also get it at Home Depot. 
The problem with favors is I always forget to give them out by the end of the party, so my husband suggested the time clock idea to draw attention to it in case we forgot. Another cute idea I saw online was a sign that said Don't Forget to Collect Your Wages. 

Our food table was put in my painting area, so I moved the easels sideways in order to fit the table into the corner. 
I had another black tablecloth from a previous party that I also painted a road on for the food table.
I didn't like the way the easels looked behind the table so I made this simple sign.

We had a great time and it was great to get to celebrate another year with our sweet two year old.

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