Hey y'all. Apparently I now only post to show you birthday parties. This past Sunday our little J turned 2! We celebrated with a "Little Blue Truck"-themed birthday party, which we invited an obscene amount of people to. I was so nervous about the weather, but the day turned out to be gorgeous.
Because I have found it helpful to see the ideas of what other party-planners have done, once again I am sharing our party with all of you.
Online Links
First, I used a few Little Blue Truck PDFs that are available for free. One is from the book publisher here. The other is a free PDF with some of the characters, which I found here. I also used this image for the activity.
Invitations
Using a very old design program that I have on a very old computer that I keep only for that program, which I use once or twice a year for projects like this, I designed invitations. I used the character PDF I linked above to cut out the characters and implement them in my design.
Games/Activities
I'm incredibly blessed to have a husband with some not only artistic talent but also a basic understanding of how to use power tools. In this case, both were used to create this amazing wooden Little Blue Truck photo booth.
I can't get over how well it turned out. Is there some reason that makes sense to keep this??? He used the cheapest plywood we could find -- subfloor plywood. And it still turned out amazingly, in my opinion. He always borrows his dad's projector to sketch out the plan really well for things like this, though I know many people have made their own similar photo booths using cardboard and freehand.
I'll admit, I'm pretty proud of this next activity. I came up with the idea of creating a "passport" using stickers for kids to collect at various carnival-type games. I used these stickers, which had five animals (also on Amazon here). I designed the passports, and I'm happy to share the PDF here. I printed them on both sides of a piece of cardstock and then cut them out.
I used yarn and binder clips to make them into lanyards for the kids. I didn't want to hole-punch them, because I wanted the kids to have the cards for keepsakes if they wanted, and I thought it was nicer this way. But you could easily just hole-punch them (or not make them into lanyards at all) if that was your preference. The idea in my head was what I wrote on a chalkboard of instructions for kids as they arrived: "Hey kids! You're the Little Blue Truck, and the animals need a ride! Grab a passport and play the games to collect all 5 animals!"
The games are fairly basic DIY games that I just made fit the theme, although a couple were yard games I picked up at Five Below and Party City:
Got this at Five Below. It worked well. I didn't hear any complaints!
Yes, I printed clip art sheep heads on cardstock, cut them out, and scotch-taped them to the bowling pins I got from Five Below. They were hilarious, and I love them. This was also the least successful of the games, just because the wind kept blowing them down. Funnily enough, J received a different set of kid bowling pins as a birthday gift, and they were more weighted, so investing a little more money would probably make it more successful if your party is outside. Of course, you could stick sheep heads to anything to make it sheep-themed. 😆
Party City in my town was going out of business, so it was discounted heavily when I bought it. I'm sure rubber duckies, a hot glue gun, and magnets could get a similar result. Or you could do some other rubber ducky game. This was actually matched with the chick stickers, so maybe you'll be better than me at finding a chicken-themed game.
I used pink trash cans from the Dollar Tree, plus a package of ping pong balls from Dollar Tree. Husband drew pig faces on them because why not? But I'm not sure it was necessary. ha. This is the standard Bozo game, right? Try to get a ball in each bucket.
Cow Bean Bag Toss
Husband made this using the off-cuts from the Little Blue Truck photo booth. We got a package of bean bags from Party City, again discounted heavily because it was going out of business.
He just cut holes in the board and then attached a board to the back with a hinge to make it stand up. Painted it in a cow theme.
We didn't follow this tutorial exactly, but you could use it if you were looking to try your own hand at it. We didn't bother with the mesh.
I was really happy with how much the kids seemed to like the "passports." When they collected all the animals, they went to collect the prize, which was the party favor.
Favors
For favors, I just ordered these twirly straws with animal charms on them. I had ordered a cheaper set, which I returned because the animals charms were too loose and didn't stay on the straws. The kids seems to really like these favors, and I recommend the exact ones I linked to because the "charms" or whatever you want to call them stayed attached to the straws! The kids got to pick their animal, which is always more fun, I think.
Decorations
It seems that old-timey pickup trucks are like, a thing, when it comes to what's "in" right now and what's around places like Hobby Lobby and the Dollar Tree. I got several truck decorations at 75% off after Valentine's Day at Hobby Lobby, and Husband painted them blue. Voila.
Food
We wanted simple, so we grilled hot dogs and served them with chips and watermelon. I think it would have been even simpler to not serve food, as Husband spent much of the party grilling. But otherwise, the food went over well.
We also did cupcakes (with toppers from the link above), dirt cups (because the Dump truck and Little Blue Truck got stuck in the mud, obviously), and then I also made cookies using animal cookie-cutters using this recipe. The recipe was good, but honestly, this was an unnecessary step, and I wouldn't do it again. I'd probably pick one or two of those three sweet treats to bother with.
Party!
Whew, it's always a whirlwind! But I think everyone had a good time, including the birthday boy. So many generous friends and family gave him lovely gifts and lots of love and attention. We were so glad to see our friends and family! Thank you to everyone who came!
