Tractor Party

It was at some point this summer, that I decided to start planning a tractor birthday party for my little guy!  He is turning three in less than two weeks, and he is obsessed with any and all things TRACTOR!  An obsession I wholeheartedly endorse!  Anyway, I figured if I was going to do this, I was going to give it my all.  I had no idea how many ideas I would come across that I just "had" to do!   Luckily for me, most of the ideas I came across on the Internet and Pinterest were pretty easy to replicate and just took some time!   I started my planning/crafting weeks early and used my blessed nap times in addition to some early morning hours.   Here are some of the things that went in to this party, based around the very things that he enjoys and loves! 





 I started with the invitations.  Rummaged through all my materials and came up with just barely enough paper to make all my invitations, surprisingly enough they went perfect with my intended theme.  Printed the text on vellum and secured with metal grommets and tied with hemp for a rustic look.  We went outside searching for the ideal fall picture, using Daddy's old cowboy hat and his trusty John Deere ride on!  I just love this picture!  Luckily, we bought a photo printer last year on Black Friday for pennies and this came in quite handy for printing them off! 

The thing that took me the longest was definitely the favors.  I was so excited to put these together for his friends!  First, I found the buckets on sale at Target, simply by chance one day and bought all they had and I think I spent less than $6.00.  At $.30 a piece, I figured I could decorate with them and and thus sparked the idea for the favors!

 From there I came across tractor candy molds on Amazon, which were also a good deal.  We had somehow seemed to accumulate a ton of those little crayon packs in the last year or so, you know the ones you get at restaurants, or at expo, conventions etc.  Anyway we had a lot, plus also I went to our local thrift store and found a couple packs of used crayons for about $.25 a piece. The birthday boy, saw my need for help one day and filled the need by loading up all the crayon papers into his dump truck and then hauling to the trash can!  Such a helper that boy!  Melted them down using a double broiler type method, kettle with an inch of water and then a tin can placed inside where I melted the crayons down.  Heated to melting and then poured into the molds.  This can be done WAY easier with silicone molds, but I could only find the tractors in plastic.  Big sigh!  This took me a while!  Packaged inside treat bags and stapled shut with card stock paper and free John Deere tractor printables, I found by searching online.  The lollipops were made my using the other tractor mold  I bought and melting down chocolate wafers using the double broiler method again.  In my opinion, the melting of chocolate by this method is a very tricky process.   I much prefer melting in a crock pot for a much more even and constant melting temperature.  I have almost never had success with this in the microwave either!

The tags for the favors were cut using my Sizzix diecutter and coordinating colors of cardstock, all things I had:) Coloring books printed on our printer, using free printables I found on line and secured together with green and yellow ribbons from my stock pile. Also made up some bags of "spare tractor wheels" in case you needed some extra nourishment on the way home!  And if you asked Evan what he wanted for his birthday, the only thing he would tell you was cookies and ice cream!  A couple days before the party it switched to a blue car and a blue truck.  He got the cookies and ice cream and he got a blue matchbox truck, so he did pretty well!   

Decorations were high on my list but I didn't want to spend a lot and I figured if I was outside the landscape of fall would provide most of what I needed!   Again, by chance at this same thrift store, I found pre-cut quilting squares in the perfect color combination.  What are the chances?  I wasn't sure what I was going to use them for but figured I would think of something. Definitely came home to Pinterest that of course and came up with a bunting!  Perfect!  Now of course I altered it and instead of using triangles, I placed the squares side by side instead, but it worked out great and with the pre-cut squares each bunting took me less than 20 minutes to sew together.  Balloons completed the look!  


 If you are two and three years old, what can be more perfect that a hayride to a farm???  It helps that we live just on the other side of a farm and had easy access to get over there!  Mr. E and I frequent this farm regularly so we knew what to expect from our friend Spurs, the horse! Borrowed a trailer from a friend, some hay bales from another friend and made their day!

I spent almost the entire day prior to the party cooking up a storm in my kitchen!  The cake was made from two separate cakes baked in individual pans, (in John Deere colors, of course!) and then layered together with chocolate icing!   Iced and then decorated with the same toys my son loves to play with, pre-washed of course and he had a very hard time letting them go for the next 24 hours!   Very simple cake and yet, he LOVED it so much!!!  Crock pot potato soup and macaroni and cheese in my dutch oven, both made the day before, left me ample time to prepare/decorate outside the next morning while my food was slowly heating inside:)   Hot dogs, chips, pretzels, cookies, crackers, and ice cream rounded out the meal and the ever popular Cake Pops finished it off!

A corn table was the only other real source of entertainment, and perfect for this group!   My husband made this for me using leftover materials, some heavy five gallon buckets gave it lots of stability, we got corn from the feed mill and all my son's toy tractors completed the scene!  The tarp underneath the table was a must!  My little man's shirt was another one of my creative endeavors for this party as well.  The black shirt came from the Dollar Tree and the letters cut using my Sizzix Cutter again out of the same squares used for the bunting and then ironed on with iron on transfer fabric! 

A nice warm fire pit was absolutely necessary on this chilly November day, but overall we couldn't of asked for a better-weather day this far into Fall in Pa!

The presents were a big hit for him at the end of the party!  There was so much excitement prior, I doubt he even had time to think about the fact that this was yet to come!  So many nice things bestowed to him by his loving friends and family.  He was SO blessed!  And the very last thing given to him was this big red barn that his Daddy and I made for him!  The anticipation that had been building for us to give this to him was so great!  We had spent HOURS working on this during, nap times, after he went to bed, before he got up in the morning!  Mr. E was quite annoyed when we wouldn't let him out in the garage while we were working on it!  We were just so excited to see his reaction and hear his excitement!  He loves it and has been playing "farm" endlessly!    











All in all, my favorite single moment from whole day was singing Happy Birthday to my very special little guy!  Pretty sure it was probably his favorite too!  He just could not wait for this moment and the anticipation had been built up pretty high!  While we were getting the cake ready, he sat ready, poised in his chair at the end of the table waiting!

I can only imagine what was running through his head....but I know his squeals of delight and clapping after we sang to him were the only thing I needed to hear that day to make me feel AMAZING!  I would do ALL of it over in a heartbeat just to repeat that moment!  I just LOVE seeing that happiness and excitement on his face!  It's a rush of adrenaline for me and I definitely teared up hearing everyone sing to him!  Amazing! 

I didn't have much of an allowance to pull this party together and you probably won't believe me when I say that ALL my receipts only totaled just over $80!  That does not include things like condiments or plastic ware, the wood for the corn table, etc because those were all things we had.  I tried to use all reusable items that we had for decorating, serving etc to keep the costs down.  Plus, all things used will be repurposed  like the corn to feed the deer through the long cold winter!  Now that also does not include the barn we made for him!  That actually added up to be quite a bit more than we intended, however we figured if were were going to do it....we were going to go the extra mile to make sure it was one that would hold up for multiple generations!

So there in a nutshell is my Tractor Party for a 3 year old!  Sorta sad that it's already over!  Not sure what his interests will be next party time...but I will certainly be excited for the challenge of creating it to be special for him!!  So much fun to give that to him!!