Old West Party

My little bandit

Here are the details of our Old West birthday party for our boys from this past weekend!

Banner - Wish I had a better pic of the banner in it's entirety.  It was super easy to make, printed out the design and colored it in with colored pencil.  Then I took a wet tea bag and "sponged" it on each piece to antique them.  Hung them on a string with mini clothes pins.   I got this string and clothespins as part of a baby gift from my baby shower and have used several times for a bunch of different things.  It was super cute as a shower gift too...it had little onesies hung on it...sweet right :)

Bean Bag Toss Game - Got these great silver buckets in Target's $1 section.  Kept the theme with the same star graphic.  My mother sewed the bean bags for me from an old pair of jeans that were too small for my son.  They're actually "rice" bags, not bean bags :)  I filled them with rice and closed off the holes with a few stitches.

Party Munchies

Cheese and Crackers
Basic?  Yes, but a staple at our get togethers cause they're kid friendly.

Various "spuds"
I tried to use serving dishes one may find in an old west town.  Wood, baskets and cast iron.

My Trail Mix 
My own mix of Dry Roasted Peanuts, Chocolate Chips, Butterscotch Chips, Pretzels, Raisins, and mini marshmallows.  Served in a Cast Iron pot.

The Cupcakes
From Aldi's mix and icing of course.  It's the best!  Note the gold wrappers :)

Little Mugs
Bought at the party store for the kiddies to drink their juice at the Saloon

The Saloon
Drink station - Featuring Juice, Root Beer, & Whiskey!


The Mining

My outdoor Trading Post and Weigh Station

The Gold!
I painted rocks from my landscaping to make the "nuggets".  Then buried them with regular rocks in two big buckets of sand.  The kids had a good time rootin' for the gold.

The Weigh Station

Once the kids found enough gold to out weigh my big gold nugget, they could trade it in for the Trading Post goodies (aka their treat bags).

I used the same Tea Bag Treatment in the letters for the sign.

The Goodies
Dynamite sticks (Twizzlers), Chocolate Gold Coins, Punching Bag Balloons, Mining Glow Sticks, Candy Filled Gold Bars, and more!  The Gold Bars were my favorite, found these great little gold bar boxes at the party store and they were just perfect.  Used some tins, aluminum cans, baskets, and glass jars as holders.

The Trading Post

Made from two cardboard boxes with hand drawn wood grain.  Gotta love Sharpies!  Turned out pretty good, my kids are still playing with it.  Each kid filled their brown paper treat bag with their name and star graphic on it with lots of goodies.  Can' believe I forgot to take a pic of the treat bag....oh well.

Party planner I am not but I think the kids had a really good time.  It was a bit chaotic, my husband has a large family but they're used to it.  Our friends however are not, hope they still has some fun.  I've come to realize my boys would have probably been just as happy with just some balloons and cake but I had a good time doing this theme.  We'll see what next year holds.

Linking up with the Busy Budgeting Mama today.  Check her out for some REAL party ideas!

A mining we will go...

My babies are growing up...I can't help but get emotional.  My youngest will be 2 and my oldest will be 5 in a few days.  They were both born on the first day of spring, 2 years and 364 days apart.  

We did separate parties last year because I wanted my baby to have his own 1st birthday party like his big brother got.  But this year we're doing a combined party.  So far the boys both seem to be OK with sharing the day.  We decided on a old west kind of theme.  My oldest likes the show on Discovery Channel "Gold Rush Alaska" and thinks gold mining is way cool.  And anything my oldest likes, my youngest thinks is cool too.  He's such a little copy cat :)

Here's a snipit from the invitations I did.

Wanted

"Bubba" & "Eagle Eye"

Gold Thieves

Grab the next stagecoach
and 'giddy up to the _____ Homestead
to search for the missing gold!
We'll have a rootin' tootin' good time!

Help us celebrate the _____ Brothers birthdays!

Saturday, March 19th 2011

3-1/2 hours past HIGH-NOON (3:30 pm)

at the _____ Homestead

We're going to do some gold mining with little aluminum pie pans that I'm going to punch holes in.  Each kid will get a bag of sand with rocks and "gold" in it.  They'll then get to sift out the sand and rocks to get their "gold".  Once they have their gold, they'll bring it to the trading post where we will weigh it and exchange it for some goodies they can take home.  Each kid will get the same amount of gold and basically I will be assembling their treat bags from the Trading Post goodies.

 I took a lot of time to draw the wood grain on these cardboard boxes that will serve as our Trading Post.  I still need to add the sign at the top.  My oldest said "Mom, I can still tell its cardboard".  Sheesh!  Give a Mom a little credit!

We'll also have a Saloon for some beverages.  We got some cute plastic mugs from the party store that are actually for coffee but look like they could be an old style beer mug.  And their the perfect size for our little guests. 

I'm making a banner and cupcake toppers too.  Ideas inspired by some fellow bloggers.  I'll share their details and tutorials once I post all my finished party props.

These will be cut out and strung for a banner

Cupcake Toppers

I ran out of colored printer ink so was limited to a small color pallet.  Printed everything in black and hand coloring in some parts.  A less insane mom would just go buy more colored ink.  But alas it's not in the budget (remember what I said about learning how to decide where to spend your money from my last post?)  I actually kind of like the way the colored pencil fill is looking, adds a little to the old time effect but is still colorful.

I'm enjoying the planning and trying to add more details than usual since this is the only birthday party we'll be doing this year.  I'll keep you posted on how it all turns out.

 Linking up with the Busy Budgeting Mama!