cow party

Moo Moo, Party Review {the food}

June 7, 2013 · Leave a Comment

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy. 🙂

Whew, almost done folks. The food for Owen and Ellie’s was probably the easiest thing to plan, but the biggest pain to execute. Let me explain. I knew I wanted to keep things pretty simple with the food. One of the main reasons I did a 3pm party was that it was after nap time, but before the dinner hour so I didn’t feel like I needed to feed people a full meal.

Let’s start with the drink table outside. I used the sign “wet your whistle” for the main signage and then labeled each drink bin as “well water” and “adult beverages.” I had sweet tea as well. I had bought different syrups to have a milk bar as well, but as time got really short toward the end, I didn’t put it out. Plus it was warm enough that I didn’t want to think about how to keep the milk cool and still look cute.

Yes, I made all the water bottle labels. I designed them in photoshop and printed them on card stock. I then put contact paper over them to try to help them last water in their ice bath. I just love little details like this.

I found adorable thick cardboard straws on pick your plum in one of their daily deals.

Now let’s move indoors. Here was a list of my menu with their cute “farm names” which I just found in various places on the web.

wrapped silverware tied with twine

fruit trays

no bake cookies – recipe here

the “cow spots” were chocolate covered Oreos

veggies and dip

good ‘ol Rice Krispie Treats

Now on to the cake table. My favorite part. But it was a paint to get this all ready the day before. I priced having someone else doing the cupcakes, but I couldn’t justify being able to buy all the box mixes I would need for the price of a few cupcakes. So I decided to do them all myself. This definitely added stress to everything else that had to get done last minute. But they turned out great. Thanks to Jenna for icing them all. 🙂

I kept it simple by just doing vanilla and chocolate, but both with vanilla icing.

And then there was the cake. I’m so proud of this guy. I made the cute flag bunting and attached it to kabob sticks with pointy ends so it would slide in easily.

I used a white boxed cake mix and divided it into two small round cake pans. I followed the directions on the pans and greased them with real shortening which helped them come out of the pans great. I dropped spoonfuls of chocolate cake batter in white to make it look like cow spots when it was cut open. Then I put one of top of the other with a little icing. I did a crumb coat on the whole thing and put it in the fridge overnight. (I loosely followed these directions on how to ice the cake since I’ve never done a “fancy” cake before). The morning of the party I did a icing layer all over and got it as smooth as I could and did a cute scallop around the bottom.

To make the cow spots, I found these awesome sugar sheets* at Walmart. They come in tons of colors, are edible, and you can literally just cut them with a pair of scissors. So I just cut out cow spots and laid them all around the cake.

It tasted great and I think it was pretty adorable!

It was a pretty windy day so the candles were a bust. But it was fun to have everyone singing to our two cuties!

my sweet family

One more post to go and I promise you won’t have to read any more about this party. 🙂

all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations – crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food
Photobucket

*these links are Amazon affiliate links:

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Moo Moo, Party Review {the craft station}

May 31, 2013 · Leave a Comment

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy. 🙂

Now onto the 3 stations that kept the kids busy for the first half of the party. The first was the craft station. We love crafts at our house, so I knew I wanted to do a simple activity station. I chose 2 very simple projects that even 2 year olds could do in about 10 minutes. I put everything in a bag with the kid’s name on it and then alphabetized it in a tub, so make it super easy to grab each kid’s project when they arrived at the table. The first thing was simply a white sheet of cardstock where the kids could attach these foam farm stickers. They came in a pack of 500 from Oriental Trading (they have them on Amazon too). I had split them up ahead of time so every kid got one of each shape. There were bowls of (new) crayons out on the tables if they wanted to add details to their pictures. Have I mentioned how much I love new Crayola crayons?

The second project was inspired by my love for Dot Paint Markers. Do you have these? Because you should. We used them tons in my classroom and I loved having an excuse to get them 2 new packs for the party. They are (almost) mess free painters.

Do-A-Dot Art Set, 6/Pkg, Rainbow images I found these farm animal pages from Oriental Trading that are made specifically for the dot markers. Each kid got one animal page in his/her bag and the dot markers were just out on the table for the sharing. Here’s a few pictures of the station in action: Pool-5169 Pool-5170 Pool-5173 Pool-5177 Pool-5203 Pool-5208 Pool-5210 Pool-5222 And that’s it for the craft station. Short and sweet. Time to ring the red cowbell and switch stations!

Here are all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations – crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food
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Moo Moo, Party Review {the outfits}

May 30, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Once my decor was decided, it was time for the kid’s outfits. I waited until the last week to get this done because I bought short sleeve and long sleeve shirts. The weather had been so back and forth, I wasn’t sure which ones I was going to need. For both of their shirts, I used fusible iron on to get the the cow print and the black background to stick to the shirt. Then I sewed around it with red thread. Their names were made out of a fuzzy vinyl. After making them, I wished I had made their names red. But oh well, no one noticed that except me, right?

I found Ellie’s skirt on ebay and scored it for cheap! Loved it so much!

Her headband was my third attempt. I just didn’t love anything I made until this one appeared. It really could not have been more perfect with the scrabble tile and the 1!

Ellison’s red boots also came off ebay and completed her outfit perfectly!

William was simply instructed to wear white or black. Although he donned the cowboy hat quite well.

I found my cute sundress at Kohl’s and my friend Kimberly let me borrow her red boots. The girl (ok her hubby) mailed them to me, how awesome is that?!

And that’s what we wore.

all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations – crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food
Photobucket

Moo Moo, Party Review {the decor and favors}

May 30, 2013 · Leave a Comment

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy. 🙂

I had a pretty clear vision for what I wanted the party to look like. There are so many ways to go with a barn theme, so I picked these main colors and stayed with that theme throughout. I knew I wanted to use cow print, burlap, with splashes of red.

I made lists of my main areas that needed decorations and slowly made my way through the lists. For about 2 months, I just tried to knock out one project a day (during nap times or after the kiddos were asleep). Luckily, some of the projects I was able to do with Owen which made it super fun!

Front Welcome Area

My sister had the fabulous idea of putting stars on the path to the door. She has seen this idea on Pinterest but the flour didn’t show up very well, so the next thing I knew she had found some red and silver spray paint and went to town. She cut a start shape out of the middle of a large piece of posterboard and used it as a stencil. She did it on the walkway, and also close to the gates in the backyard. After 1 mow, you can barely tell they were there. So adorable!

To keep my graphics pretty uniform throughout the party, I bought this digital clipart set off Etsy. I used these animals and background papers for almost everything I did.

Barnyard Animals Clip Art Barn Clip Art Set Farm Clip Art - cow, goat, pony, sheep, chicken, tractor, barn (personal or commercial use)

For the front door sign, I printed out EIEIO on cardstock using this free Rio Grande font. The cow print was a digital paper from above that I just printed. I could not find cow print paper anywhere. I found the chalkboard for super cheap at a local kids resale store and my sister did the awesome handwriting on it. The cow balloons are from Hobby Lobby. I took them to Schnuck’s a few days before the party and they filled the, and added the red ones. There was also a large cow balloon
that I used in the backyard.

Inside
I knew most people would spend their time outside, but I still wanted to put up something small inside and have pictures of the kids somewhere. I made circles that had each month on it and hung twine from the back. I hung 2 pictures with small clothespins on each string. I did the same thing for Owen, but did half year increments.

The other large inside decor were the 2 food tables and I’ll be doing a separate post about the food. But my favorite decor item was definitely the large barn backdrop that I made. The green “pastures” were just perfect for the cupcakes grazing. I got the cow tablecloth from Amazon. I also sewed a burlap and cow print bunting and made a matching one for the photo booth outside and a small one for Ellie’s high chair.

At the last minute, I hung up this cow that was in my farm folder from my classroom.

And of course, the bathroom needed a sign which read Outhouse – Don’t Squat on Yer Spurs.

disclaimer – not a Jenna picture

The Backyard
I had my heart set on a windmill hanging from the swing set. I took white posterboard, free handed windmill shapes, and spray painted it silver. But the dowels I taped on didn’t offer much support. So it got put on the back burner. When Kara and Philip arrived, they saved the day by figuring out how to support it better (thank to Owen’s little golf club set) and got it hung up. Thanks guys!!

The tables were all covered with cheap dollar store red table cloths. My sister and I taped them all down since there was a nice breeze that day. We cut out squares of the burlap and cow fabric. They were taped down as well since the cow print kept blowing away. I bought pint mason jars (cheap with a coupon at Joanns) and wrapped them with more burlap, red ribbon, and then twine. Daisies completed the look.

The favor table was in the middle of all the action because I wanted to be sure people signed the photo mat for Ellie. Owen had one from his first birthday party so I wanted one for Ellie’s room too! I found a bulletin board at Goodwill for $1 that I spray painted red and glued burlap to the middle. I printed out pictures of Owen and Ellison together and just pinned them on.

In the two large red tubs were the kid and mommy favors. The kids (along with cowboy hats they got later at the game station) got a 6 pack of flavor straws. When you put them in milk, the milk gets sucked up through favor “beads” and makes for fun chocolate/strawberry/etc milk. The tag said “thank moo for coming.”

The ladies at the party got little burlap sacks that I found on pickyourplum. I added a little vinyl letter of their initial. Inside was a small bottle of Udderly Smooth Hand Cream that I found at the Dollar Store! 🙂

Above the drink table, I took a piece of red posterboard and cut it in half. I used hot glue and very carefully spelled out their names and attached twine. The red frame is usually hanging in my kitchen, but it got repurposed here with a string and a few more pictures of the 2 together.

The craft table donned some more mason jars with flowers and a cute rooster that I borrowed from my Aunt Toni.

Whew, I think that’s it for the main part of the decorations!

Here are all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations – crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food

Photobucket

Moo Moo, Party Review {the inspiration and agenda}

May 30, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Are you ready for this folks? The pictures arrived today and it’s time to do some posts about the most amazing party ever (well, in my humble opinion). Now what the heck am I going to do next year? 🙂 We’ll just start with my inspiration, how I got ideas, then the agenda and go from there to the decor, food, activities, etc. I’ll break this up over several posts because of all the {beautiful} pictures.

The theme was easy. I had been throwing around cow/farm ideas ever since his first birthday, because he has always had a love for cows. So I started browsing Pinterest and saving all the ideas on a secret board. (it’s not secret anymore if you want to take a peek). cow birthday party I started saving pictures that I loved and then made lists. Lots and lots of lists. My biggest tip for planning a party like this is start early! Not only was it essential to getting everything done, but I was able to scour the internet and grab some great deals from sites and not worry about getting them here on time. Gotta love eBay and shipping from China. 🙂

I knew that with 42 adults and 28 kids, that this party was going to take some major organization on my part. So I approached it like I would have a classroom party with time frames for everything, and stations where I could break up the large number of kids and keep them busy. So I planned 3 fun stations and made little agendas to hand out when people arrived.

I had the kids split up into 3 animal groups. Each kid got animal sticker that was attached to the agendas. I simply handed the agenda to the parents as they arrived. It was a great way to say hello to every family as they came. This is the only picture I have with the agendas in my hand, welcoming the animal lady. 🙂 Pool-5138 Having the agenda was also a great way to make sure people signed the mat I had for Ellie and grabbed their favors on the way out. Now let’s move on to the decor!

all the party links:
inspiration and agenda
outfits
decor and favors
the stations – crafts, animals, games
the photobooth
the food

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