Happy Birthday to My little Man Part 4...Outdoor Activities

Hello and welcome back. I hope you've had some time to check out the earlier posts about the big day. Today, I'm excited to show you my favorite part the party the outside!

To decorate the outside, we made plenty of construction road signs personalized for our  party theme. My husband cut them out of wood but we found the metal piping was just not in our budget...the solution, silver spray painted pvc!

As guests walked out they entered the New Home Development Site ... The speed limit on this street is 2 of course.

My aunt offered to purchase some construction hats from Oriental Trading Company and I was tickled when the box showed up with not only traditional yellow but pink hats as well. I added a label that read Drew's Crew and they were set. We also picked up some foam hammers from Target's dollar bin. The boys had so much fun getting them wet and attacking each other. We also picked up some tool belts from Home Depot and some construction vests also from Oriental Trading Company. Any crew member that rode the crane had to wear the gear and they LOVED it. (So did I!)

Andrew also got this great sand and water station for his birthday from my parents. Coincidentally it was the perfect colors and we filled it up with sand and let the kids dig. Of course we had to add a sign!



Our Ice Bucket



To help quench our guest's thirst my husband built a roach coach. We added aluminum on the roof but painted the top gray so it wouldn't be as hot. I printed roaches onto clear labels and then added them on for an extra effect.

 

This was my favorite part of the whole party. While searching for ideas, I found these great ideas for wrecking ball set-ups. They were a basketball wrapped in black fabric and on  a string usually hung from a tree. I loved the idea immediately and knew I wanted to do it. When I told my husband he and  my brother-in-law immediately wanted to build a moving working crane and that's exactly what they did. I'll post the tutorial coming soon but they built a frame on a lazy susan type of material. The kids were able to move the wrecking ball back and forth and knock down the brick wall. To make the brick wall I wrapped several sizes of boxes in red wrapping paper and used brown paint and a sponge to make the bricks. I love the way it turned out!

Due to the crazy heat we also had a waterslide and jumper. Here's a picture of our water hazard area:

I've got one more day of the party to show you tomorrow .. The tool box goodie boxes my husband built, our Drew's Crew T-Shirts and of course thank you cards! I hope you'll be back!

 

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Little Man! Part III..The Dessert Table!

 I love dessert tables and was really excited to put this together. I've been cruising Pinterest for months getting ideas and originally wanted to use fabric as a backdrop but decided to use a window instead.

 I hung paper lanterns from the ceiling. (You can't really see the paper lanterns hanging above in this picture, but I promise they are there.) I found this polka dot material at Walmart for $2. which I used as a tablecloth.

 Due to last year's lack of photos (I didn't take a single one!) I made sure to spend a few minutes before the guests arrived to snap a few photos. The only problem I hadn't laid out all of the desserts so it's an 80% done picture.  I did take about 200 photos but didn't capture everything I wanted to so next year I think we'll either need to hire a photographer and designate a family member "Photographer of the Day". 

I added a pennant banner in the center and finished the backdrop with dumptrucks I made from my Cricut machine. I just attached them to clothespins and viola! I fell in love with these little guys so I made enough to embellish all of my windows.  

I love dessert tables flanked with the guest of honor's name, so when I found these foam letters at Joann's fabric store for 25 cents a piece I was so excited. Originally they were pink and purple which simply wouldn't do for my little man so I painted them in line with the colors of the party. I added a painted wooden dowel wrapped with ribbon and found these great construction cones at you guessed it ... Dollar Tree!

Originally I wanted to make two large polka dot ribbon bows for the sides but my husband was adamant that there would be no bows...so instead I hung two large yellow shovels with ribbon (not bows :) ) and attached them to the table with clothes pins. I thought it ended up better than my original idea. So thanks Babe for the great decorating advice.

I found the orange and white striped flower pots in the $1 bin at Michaels and embellished them with construction stickers I found in my collection. I used those to house some chocolate and toffee marshmallow pops and a cute bin to hold the dessert forks.

I got some tool cupcake toppers from Shindigz and made my own road sign toppers

For dessert I made cupcakes, cookie pops, chocolate cake, and my favortie chocolate covered marshmallows rolled in toffee pops. We also had See's candy which I didn't make but I did eat! 

To finish it off I found these great plates at Target that were 75% off! Yeah for sales!! 

  

So I decided to use some to make my own cake plate! For the center I used a blue bucket I found in the $1 bin also at Target.

Speaking of cake... on Andrew's actual birthday, we went to Disneyland and were just planning on staying a couple hours (we have passes so we usually just jump on a couple rides and head home.) however, he was having so much fun we stayed longer than expected. The cake I was planning on baking got scrapped. Instead,  I bought an ice cream cake from the local grocery store. Have you noticed how expensive ice cream cakes are? Good thing they are delicious and with the heat wave we are experiencing totally worth it. Since I spent more than I wanted to on the cake and felt guilty for not baking one, I made my my own cake toppers. Handy Manny of course! I found a free printable from Disney Family.com for a Handy Manny toolbox craft I've been wanting to make. I just downloaded and printed out the printable (did I mention it was my favorite...free!) and added toothpicks.  Click Here for the Free Link

Overall I was quite pleased with my table! I hope you liked it to...

Next Up ...The Backyard. (It's My favorite part! )

 

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Little Man - Part II

Welcome Back! Here's a tour of how we decorated inside...

If you missed it Check out Part 1 here!

I started planning this party months ago, which gave me a lot time to keep my eyes open for party decor and a lot of time to make the decorations I wanted. Unfortunately, it gave me a lot time to spend money...next year, maybe I'll just go on vacation.

Step one of getting ready for the party included a good house cleaning scrub down! (My least favorite part :( but it was a must!) My sister had the brillant idea of removing the majority of the toys from the playroom. Our playroom is immediately to the right of our front door and the kids always love playing in there but they never seem to keep the toys in the room. It worked out great since we ended up having the photo booth there.

If you've read my blog before you know this lil momma is a working woman so I planned ahead this year and took of the two days before the party and the Monday after (just to recover.) The great news is I made it all the way until Sunday without logging on to the computer. Yeah for me!!! The Friday before was a great way to get the decorations started. My sister and brother-in-law were over all day helping which was wonderful!

I got these great paper lanterns from Shindigz for $1.99 each on clearance of course. The lime green one I bought at the dollar store. I hung them above our kitchen island and the dessert table. I love the look of paper lanterns but haven't used them because every time I see them they are so expensive and I never knew what size to get. (The yellow aand orange ones are 12" and the perfect size I think. Although the cute green one would be perfect for under an umbrella. I am excited to use these throughout the year. They were a great quality and I wish I would have ordered more!

I made a banner with my cricut machine and made a couple of wreaths using polka dot balloons that the dollar store had!

Here's a closer look. I love that they let almost look like they are made out of fabric!

I made two other types of garland throughout the party...circle garland and pennant banners which I love. Check out my earlier Pennant Blog here. The circle garland was so simple to make, just punch out cardstock circles using your circle punch which I took with me in the carpool for a few days. Crafting makes traffic a lot easier (Don't worry my husband drives and I ride passenger..it works out very well for me on our 1 1/2 each way commute!) This garland is cheaper than any you can find in the store and soo much cuter!

We moved my kitchen table against the wall and set up the food table in the family room. Usually we have the computer on small table in there too but moved it out for the party and replaced it with a candy bar! So much more fun! Our family has had some run ins with pinatas in the past. A trip to the ER and a broken window later we finally gave up and just let the kids fill their own bag up. The adults find this idea way cooler too. But don't worry we still let them wreck stuff...afterall this was a construction party!

 The Candy Bar ... At a yard sale a few weeks back I found these great cookie/candy jars. I got the whole box full for $15. It came with three large ones and  six small ones! I simply added ribbon around the tops and made a small dump truck label. I purchased some digital clipart that I was able to use on the invitation and throughout the party. I loved tying everything in and loved making it.

 

Here's peering into the family room!

The food table was covered in lime green polka dot material from Walmart for $2. We served most of the food out of dump trucks or buckets (new of course!) but when we set the food out I was in hostess mode so I'm trying to see if friends have more picks!This is of the before picture.  I also added large shovels into the chip bags with the words DIG IN imprinted on them! 

 

Throughout the planning process..I was looking for cute ideas to name the food items. Originally we were planning on making "sand"wiches but at the last minute decided to go with the traditional hot dog and hamburger barbeque. We had sides of "Corkscrew" Pasta and Bolder Salad (Potato Salad) Jello Salad (Concrete walls) and Fruit Sledgehammers (Fruit Kabobs).  For Appetizers we had "Demolisher" Veggies, "Wrecking" Meatballs, and a few varities of Dry wall (Chips) and Concrete Dip. 

I found these great hard hat die cut outs at the dollar store ($1 for a pack of 25 and used them for both good box tags and food tags, I just printed the names of the different foods on to clear labels and added them to the decal. For the food tags, I glued two together and added a small piece of cardboard in between so they would stand, it was a great finishing touch! I also made a small garland with them although I didn't end up using but it was super cute.

We also hung a Present Unloading Zone sign from the ceiling so guests would know where to place the gifts. I printed it out on photo paper and it looked great and shiny!  

Coming up tomorrow... Part III The Dessert Table

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Little Man! Part I

After months of seriously planning ...my son turned two! This Mommy can't believe I already have a two year old! I'm very excited to be bringing you pictures from the big day. There's so much I want to show you so I decided to take a few days and show you the pictures.



Drew loves Handy Manny and all things construction these days...so we did a construction/polka dot themed birthday. I found my inspiration months ago at the Dollar Store...where I picked up these adorable truck balloons! I loved the fun summer colors and great patterns and knew they would be the perfect start to a great party. While they had them I picked up 15..which is like the price of 3 mylar balloons at the party store. Save your receipt and you can bring them back the day of your party and the store will inflate them for free!

Greeting Our Guests...

 

We lined our driveway with the cute traffic cones we made and I showed you in an earlier posts. Click Here if you missed it!

We made a Project Birthday sign to welcome guests and hung it from our front porch.  On our front door I hung my curly ribbon wreath!

 I had originally planned on using my Cricut to cut out the vinyl letters for all our signs since they were going to hang outdoors but while at Michael's one day (umm..I'm there almost everyday!) I was looking for wall stickers for the playroom and ran across these removable letter stickers from Me & My Big Ideas. The font was adorable and I love the fact that they are removable so I've been using them ever since. Usually they are quite expensive but the store had them on clearance for $5 a package so I bought ever single package they had and then went to the store by my work and bought them out too. (Yes, I have a problem... but $5...seriously..you can't buy vinyl that cheap!) They also come in pink glitter and I know I don't have a girl but I do have a niece so I bought them too. I also got adorable baseball ones for the playroom. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I run out. Good thing they are removable. I've been using them on banners, buckets and pretty much anything else I can label.  



 Ok so back to the party...Guests "Clocked In" at our Clock In Table by signing in a bucket I embellished with these mettalic letters I found at Michael's clearance aisle. At the end of the night it was a lot of fun to read all of the sweet messages our friends and family left.



  

Of course our mild California summer decided to come to an end this week and it was 105 degrees! I decided to move the photo booth inside and set it up in the playroom. The lighting wasn't the best but at least guests weren't so sweaty while they smiled for the camera. Unfortnately the only photo stand I had was a coat rack holder so it was a little shorter and narrow than I wanted but we made do. I put a bench in front of it so our taller guests could sit.

I made a bucket of props that included silly hats, road signs and mustaches. I found these great 3-D mustache stickers from Jolee's botique that were amazing. I stuck them to card board backing and added a wooden dowel. Our guests were so creative and funny in with our photos and it was a great way to ensure that we got pictures of all our guests!

Stay Tune for more pictures...Tomorrow is Indoor Decor!