Thursday, February 4, 2016

little blue truck birthday



This post is not meant to be a tutorial, rather to give you ideas for your little's birthday. My son will be six (tears) this July, this "Little Blue Truck" themed party was for his 3rd birthday. I am not a pro just a somewhat crafty mom that really enjoys putting together my kiddos birthdays! That being said, I could not accomplish any of this without the help of my husband and other family members! "Little Blue Truck",  by Alice Schertle was my son's favorite book at the time, and still is. Thank you for stopping by and please feel free to ask questions. 



I created these invitations using Zazzle with free clipart. Yes, you could print these at home using any number of software choices, but we were without a printer at the time. I was really happy with the result. Zazzle used a nice card-stock and they came with envelopes.



I don't recall how I came up with the photo idea for my son's birthday, but starting with his first birthday we have had everyone in attendance take a photo with the birthday boy. Over the years we have come to cherish these photos as some family members have passed, families expand, and kiddos grow. There was definitely some groaning the first couple of years as my son's birthday is July 4th, and it can be incredibly hot and humid...but now I think friends and family look forward to it. Keeping the ice cold refreshments coming also helps!



When I first started brainstorming backdrop ideas I had originally thought of using heavy cardboard to make the cutouts. Which would totally work, but my husband had the idea of using MDF board or thin pressed wood. My mom and I sketched the outlines onto the board, my sweet husband cut them out, and then we painted them. The happy birthday stop sign was a bit of a miscommunication between my mother and me. I wanted the whole sign to be red and the lettering white, like a real stop sign. My mom took the sign home to work on and brought it the morning the of the birthday...sigh, there wasn't time to change it. Oh well, its still super cute! My husband used conduit pipe to hold the signs up into the air. The signs now hang in my son's bedroom. I will include a photo at the end of this post.



When decorating for a party I like to use items that I currently have or if I purchase items I do so with the intention of finding another purpose for that item. The dump truck was gift to my son from the prior Christmas. I purchased the blue ford truck to use as decoration for the party and to give to my son as a present. I generally decorate this buffet and keep the rest of the in-house decorations to a minimum. As mentioned before, my son's birthday is the 4th of July so I always include some flags and other patriotic stuff in the mix.





I made red velvet cupcakes and used flag sticks for decoration purchased from Wal-Mart. Brownie stars made from a box brownie mix then cut out into stars with a cookie cutter and decorated with icing.





For party favor's we gave each family their own copy of "Little Blue Truck". I used raffia ribbon to attach gift tags, and displayed them in the back of dump. I love giving books for favors rather than the typical birthday party fare that you're really never quite sure what to do with.



The cake: I used white box cake baking it in different sized round pans to create the different levels. I made buttercream frosting to decorate the cake with. The brown "mud" at the top of the cake that dump is stuck in is crumbled up brownies from the leftover pieces of the brownie stars shown above. The sandy gravel is crumbled up graham crackers. The fence and cows are items my son had. For the trees I used giant marshmallows stuck into giant straws, cut to the appropriate height, pushed into the cake, and decorated using different icing tips. The dump truck and little blue were purchased at Wal-Mart in the Hot Wheel section. I couldn't locate a tiny little blue so I took a woody station wagon and painted it blue.









We had went on vacation to Disney World a couple months prior so I thought it was fun to include the Mickey symbol as a reminder of that special trip. This cake is/was in no way perfect, but was made with lots of love by his mommy!








Links:











Pictures of the signs in Everett's room.



The letters on the stop sign are from his last birthday, which was "Tractor Mac" themed.

My mom made the quilt.


4 comments:

  1. How cute is the ford truck you used on the food table?! Love it!

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  2. Where did you get the ford truck?

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    1. I apologize that my links are not working! It was purchased from Amazon. It is 1/18 scale http://amzn.to/2d9BsBE or there is a similar truck in 1/24 scale http://amzn.to/2d1UCsz for less money. Audra

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