Farm Themed Carnival Party

This post is WAY overdue, but here it is none the less.

Jakey's Birthday was a big success.

I wanted Jake's birthday party to be a big deal, but not cost very much and I accomplished that!

These cakes were made by my friend, Kelli, who is just awesome!

I had to share Jake's birthday breakfast.

Before turning one, Jake was really into farm animal noises.

Any time you opened a book with farm animals and made the corresponding noises, he would giggle. We took that love and ran with it.

Mr. Pancake Piggy

He approved.

I made this shirt by simply using double sided interfacing to place the one (That I drew and cut by hand) on the shirt. The I stitched around it with contrasting thread. He wore it on his actual birthday, not party day... but I had to share.

Oh, and one more thing before we move on. I don't have any food pictures and if you are wanting to throw a giant, farm-themed, min-carnival extravaganza for your own little one, but then decide against it because you don't have a clue what to serve at a shin-dig such as this.... I would be really sad. So, this is what we did. Our motto: Keep it simple, keep it cheap.

Hot dogs, chips, lemonade and apple slices.

(And, I asked my family members to bring some of those things!)

Pheew. That was close. Crisis averted.

Okay, moving on to actual party festivities.

The location. Does it get any better?

Here is the paper mache cow that my hubs made. (It really was all him, don't let him tell you otherwise!)

At the party.

This cow had a hole where utters would be and we milked it by filling rubb

er gloves with water, poking holes in the fingers and hanging them in the open cavity. The kids loved it!

Another station was the Saddle Photo Op.

We borrowed the saddle and bought some hay for it to sit on.

Then, again, with borrowed cowboy gear, and had the kids dress up and their parent's took pictures.

I made this banner. And, it can be used again and again.

All it is is stiffened felt cut into pendants. Then I glued on the letters.

To string them together, I used some double fold bias tape.

There you have it!

This fishing game was made of wood we had in our garage. Hubs cut it into three sections and put on some hinges. I called upon my more artistic friend, Melinda, to paint me some fishies and there you go.

Well, actually, we put paper clips on little candies and prizes. Then, the kids had a fishing pole with a magnet on the end. The magnet attracted the paper clips so that they could retrieve their prizes!

This petting zoo was my baby.

I learned how to make 3D animal patterns and I was off!

I worked on these animals for about 2 months before the party.

See!? The kids loved the cow.

This is my nephew milking it. :)

For signs, I bought pre-cut poster board to save time.

Then, I printed online images representing each station.

I had Melinda color them during movie night (or SYTYCD or something)

Then we taped them to dowel.

At the party, each of these signs were put into a small hay bail (I bought at Hobby Lobby).

These are the treat bags we gave out. I would love to take credit, but my friend, Tiffany, is all to blame. I knew I had brown paper sacks (free!) to use, and I bought the ribbon (like 3$ total), but other than that, I gave her the stuff and let her go at it! This is what she came up with as far as presentation.

The stuff in it?:

Bubbles

Homemade coloring book with online free images

and each family got an i-spy bean bag made by my Aunt. They had farm animal buttons in them.

Thanks to all my awesome friends and even awesome-er hubby. I couldn't have pulled it off without you! Not in a million years!