I used the same exact chevron invitation from the PCP’s bowling party, simply swapping the blue for gray and the bowling graphics for tools. It is available for purchase in my etsy store!
After fretting over the weather all week and dodging an afternoon rain shower, it ended up being a pretty nice day for an outdoor soiree. Luckily so, seeing as I had ten littles with boundless energy to entertain. We set the porch up for snacks and cake, and Honey made a fire to keep the adults warm.
Mother and I used kraft paper (WalMart) to cover the Angie Reuter fish painting. We enlarged the tools from the invitation as templates for felt and gingham replicas that were taped on for the affair. The red bunting was left over from our Back to School Bash and we quickly cut a similar gray gingham version to finish out the backdrop.
Mother, Daddy-O and I were sitting around the table one morning this week pondering what kind of cake we should do, and the second Mother mentioned “Oreo” I knew we had to recreate this from Martha Stewart. I used three packages of the red filled holiday Oreos for the two tiered “cake”. I stacked them on minutes before the party started and would probably advise using a little dot of icing to stick them together in the future as it was pretty precarious. I did six layers of cookies for each tier. Four sparklers were carefully stuck in the top center Oreo as a super festive substitute to the birthday candle. I had the chevron fabric in my stash and I insisted that Honey drag out his old red toolbox (that’s been locked shut with a long lost key for upwards of seven years) for the centerpiece. Doing so made me feel much better about moving it three years ago and having it hogging a whole shelf of prized garage space.
We gave all the boys' dump trucks a thorough washing and employed them as various types of serving pieces. The baby pretty much thought that was the bees knees. Two bite cupcakes from Publix were just enough sweet for the littles. I made the hammer cookies back when I made the bowling pin cookies and just thawed and iced them this week.
I rented the kid table ($8) and red chairs ($1 each) so that we could sit all the littles in one space and save our own small tables for the party activities. Since we were between meal times, the snack bags had goldfish, grapes and scooby snacks inside.
Scout kept tabs on the littles from his perch in the mantle garland. I’d say his report back to Santa would be mostly “nice.” :-)
In addition to the playset and sandbox, we set up the jumping house, a tool bench and a few building related centers for the littles in the backyard. I truly believe that you can never have enough structured activities for a bunch of kids at a party! Like the kid’s table on the porch, I topped these with kraft paper that mother and I quickly painted with red and white polka dots earlier in the week.
I ordered tool box wood craft kits for the littles and Mother and I pre-painted the pieces with chalkboard paint.
We set out mega blocks and lincoln logs (that we already owned) in red buckets (lifted from the PCP’s room) for other “construction” related activities.
Finally, little tool themed coloring and activity books rounded out the to-dos. These activity books are available for purchase in my etsy store.
As soon as the party goers arrived, the immediately began playing. It was funny how the girls flocked to the swing set, while the rowdy boys all piled in the jump house. All of them enjoyed decorating their tool boxes.
We let them play for about an hour before calling them up to the porch for a much needed snack and much anticipated cupcakes!
I certainly didn’t intend for the baby actually to blow out his sparkler candles but darn if he didn’t! It was such a cute little cake – I have a feeling I’ll be doing that one again!
It was a fun and special afternoon celebrating four years of our precious Whit…
…and the pleasure of throwing him the much awaited and anticipated “tool party” was all mine!
xoxo
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