Wild West Birthday Party

Well folks, this here mama is happy to announce that my Mr and I now have a new "2" and a new "3" in our household! We had a great big western party this past weekend and had a rootin' tootin' time! Here are some photographs...

 The Invitations:

Note: Personal info changed for privacy

The Decorations:

 

Inspiration for birthday banner found here and here

Inspiration for Western town found here and here

Real cowboys love their mama!

The Favors:

Cowboy (kettle) corn, Sheriff badges, and the lovely plastic cowboy and Indian figures pictured on the table above

The Food/Drinks:

The Mess Hall

The Candy/General Store

The Cake Station

The Watering Hole

The Fun!

And now for a few little details (since you want to know)...

The Invitations read:

WANTED

ALL COWBOYS AND COWGIRLS

WE NEED A STRONG POSSE TO BRING IN THESE HERE GUNSLINGERS

THEY ARE WANTED FOR THE CRIME OF GROWING UP TOO FAST

ROUNDUP IS APRIL 10, 2011 AT THE BIG M RANCH

(ADDRESS) 

SADDLE UP IN YER JEANS AND WESTERN DUDS AND BE READY TO RIDE OUT AT 4 PM SHARP

GET YER MA OR PA TO GIVE US A HOLLER BY APRIL 8 - (phone #)

The Decorations:

There were so many awesome ideas for decorations on the web and there were so many things that I would have loved to do with this theme...BUT, since we are moving in a couple of weeks, and on a tight budget, we didn't want to go out and buy/accumulate a lot of extra stuff for this party. that being said, guess how much we spent on decor???

$20 buckaroos (give or take a couple bucks)! I thought that was pretty impressive!

How did we do it? Glad you asked.

• For the birthday banner I used fabric, paper, string, and hot glue that we already had (it would have been A LOT easier to just print it out on paper like the 2 examples I shared above but, alas, I didn't have any fancy scrapbook paper on hand).
• For the western town we just called up our local appliance store and they gave us 4 washer/dryer boxes (for FREE!). We already had tempera paint and brushes on hand so I just painted them up!
• For table coverings we used material and packing paper that we already had (I bought three yards of checkered fabric for the food table)
• For the dining table we already had the boots, bandannas, and straw so all I purchased for this were the flowers (Wal-Mart) and the plastic badges and figurines (dollar store)

The Food:

Again, since we are moving,  we asked that our guests bring a specific side dish (fruit tray, veggie tray, potato salad, etc) rather than birthday gifts (i.e. lots of extra stuff to pack up in a few weeks). We provided the hamburgers, hot dogs, condiments, toppings, buns, drinks, desserts, and snacks.

The Fun:

We had planned an outdoor party but unfortunately it snowed the morning of our get together. So we improvised and had it at the local KofC hall.

We planned on having several games for the little ones (including Sharpshooter (shooting down cans with a rubber-band gun) Horse Race (a stick horse relay) Pin the Tail on the Horse, and Lasso the Bull (with a light rope tied to a hula hoop). However, since we had to change locations, we forgot to bring the game stuff with us (oops!). Luckily, the kids had so much fun playing with the western town and balloons that I don't think they noticed!

We also planned on having a game of horseshoes for the adults, which we nixed since we were inside.


 If I had to do it again, I think I'd take more (and better) pictures and make a few changes here and there, but overall, I'd say it was quite a success!