Monster Truck Party

This party was featured on the Amy Atlas Blog.

Thank you so much to Jennifer from JP Photography for all of the amazing photos.

To mark the huge milestone of turning 5, my youngest son Jackson said back in January that he wanted a Monster Truck birthday party after attending his first-ever Monster Jam show with his dad and brother. So, for the last five months, I researched what goes on during this shows as I've never been. After speaking with my sorority sister of mine Jennifer Billingsley and her amazing graphic designer brother Jeff Peabody, who own Honeycomb Events & Design about my thoughts for party printables, I was blown away with what Jeff came up with. The invitation was the key to the theme of the party. We both decided that we wanted to focus on the elements from a monster truck party rather than the monster truck itself to really make the party standout and that was the theme for all of the party printables.

For the dessert table, coming up with a concept was as simple as watching my boys playing with their little monster trucks in the mud and then running them along the deck. I loved the pattern that they left behind and that got me thinking. Why not paint the toy monster truck tires in black and brown paint and "drive them" all over the plywood painted board. The effect was instant only after one paint incident. The next step was deciding what else to put on the board that would really make it stand out. After looking back at the invitation, I thought of the number 5 shaped out of Washington State license plates. Thanks to friends and family for donating their plates, the design came out great, thanks to the handy work of my husband.

 I happened to be at JoAnn Fabrics looking for some sort of checkered flag linen (I didn't find what i was looking for and ended up finding it on Ebay when I found the brown linen fabric that I thought was the same color was mud. It was a very durable fabric that worked really well under the checkered flag fabric.

As I call myself an amateur baker, I wanted fun and unique sweets to complete the dessert table, so I began with popcorn, homemade chocolate pudding dirt cups, license plate and tire sugar cookies and chocolate dipped Oreos and chocolate mini donuts. I researched via You Tube to create three flavors of pie pops (cherry, blueberry and Nutella), frozen lemonade push pops.

Since I had a wedding the day before, there was no time to make cupcakes and cake pops so I outsourced them by using Puyallup's Wanna Cupcakes (Orange Dreamsicle mini-cupcakes and strawberry lemonade, orange dreamsicle and chocolate cake pops).

To decorate around the house and outside (luckily we had beautiful weather on party day. This was only the second birthday where we actually had sunshine). For the front yard, we used small checkered flags to line the driveway and then used the banner to attach to my old car's tires that we used as a photobooth.

For the backyard, we used the remaining flags for around the yard and then set-up a Refueling Station complete with pop, mini water bottles and Kool Aid.

A fun treat for all party-goers was the Body Art Station where we put on racing tattoos, face painted and sprayed painted hair black, red or green.

 For games, my husband and I created two Monster Truck inspired games, a tire toss and a Monster Truck race. The truck race was the hit of the party. Each racer was awarded with a gold trophy and our two overall winners were awarded with larger trophies. Another fun game we played was stacking the inflatable tires (pool rings). All the kids loved this game and then they each got to take one home with them.

As a thank you to all of the guests, Jackson gave his guests a checkered flag bandanna, candy and a monster truck and each attendee got to take home their very own Monster Truck VIP Pit pass.

A huge thank you to a former bride of mine who is an amazing photographer who came out before the party started to capture all of the party details. Thank you Jennifer Parsons of JP Photography!!

Vendors

Party Planner: Elegant Affairs

Party Printables: Honeycomb Events & Design

Photographer: JP Photography

Cupcakes & Cake Pops: Wanna Cupcake?

Checkered Flag fabric (Ebay): debsquilts56

Checkered flags: Oriental Trading Company

Lego Birthday Party

For my oldest son’s 7^th birthday, all he wanted was something Lego themed. He has been obsessed with Legos so this was the perfect theme for his birthday party. For the concept of the dessert table, I actually found the fabric at Joann Fabrics right after Halloween. It was fabric used with make a Minnie Mouse costume, but it gave me the inspiration for the table. To match the backdrop fabric, I found the red wrapping paper with white sparkly polka dots at Target around Christmas time. It was a perfect fit. For the other décor, I found the Lego Mini-figure head a few months back thinking it was a great Christmas present so it was hard to hide this large toy in my garage from two very snoopy boys. The finishing touches were the Capri Sun boxes that I wrapped in solid color wrapping paper.

For the food, I wanted to spotlight the Lego Mini-figure by creating Marshmallow pops which I also hand drew faces of some of the mini-figures that my sons have. To complete the look, I made Lego brick candy. I also made vanilla, chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, topped with butter cream frosting along with a Lego brick candy. My new tasty treat that I created was Lego brick and Lego mini-figure gummy candies. They were so easy to make (I used blue raspberry, raspberry, lime, lemon, orange and grape) and by far the most popular of all the kids and adults in attendance. Finally, I made Lego brick sugar cookies that I topped with mini M&Ms.

As a thank you to all of the guests, I created Lego brick replica gift bags complete with handmade Lego brick crayons, candy, and other Lego related goodies.

Also, a big thank you to Valerie from Valerie's Invites for creating amazing invitations complete with a little bag of Legos that were part of the invitation.

Star Wars birthday party

For my son's 4th  birthday party, all he wanted was Star Wars. After visiting the Star Wars exhibit a few months back at the Pacific Science he became obsessed with it. After doing some research online for birthday party examples I am came with a basic idea, but it wasn't until I found a design for an amazing invitation from Sandy Ford Designs. Sandy hand drew Jackson's face onto his birthday invitation  and there got the idea for a black and yellow theme that spawned the rest of the decor and dessert table. For decor, I created a Stars atmosphere by stringing black and gold stars on my family room/dining room ceiling.

For the dessert table, I created a black and yellow ribbon background with several black and gold stars that highlighted the table. I used Sandy's water bottle label to cover several bottles. As for yummy goodies, I made, from scratch chocolate and vanilla cupcakes frosted with yellow buttercream and topped with Star Wars characters. I made chocolate and vanilla cake pops covered in black and yellow sugar. I baked Star Wars cookies from the William Sonoma set and frosted them in royal icing. I also hand dipped in candy pretzels that were a big hit of the group followed up with whoopie pies I made with yellow filling, this treat was my mom's favorite. The only two items that I didn't bake but picked up at Fred Meyer were the chocolate mini donuts and my favorite Italian cookies that closely resembled the Death Star.

To thank the kids for coming, Jackson on his own picked out his favors that included a pack of Star Wars fruit snacks, tattoos, stickers, Light Saber ribbon, rubber ball, pack of Sixlets, candy necklace, Star Wars Pez and thumb wrestler along with a blow-up red light saber.