Construction party!!

I can't believe that my little baby boy is turning 3! And whilst I hate the fact that he's growing up so fast, I love the idea of planning a party to celebrate that milestone. This post is a digression from what I usually blog, ie scrapbooking, but I had so much fun organising and preparing for my son's 3rd birthday party that I just had to share it with everyone!

OK, let's start digging!

Ollie loves construction vehicles. He loves his excavators and back hoe loaders and steamrollers and everything you can find on a construction site. So naturally when we were mooting on the birthday theme, no prizes for guessing what we came up with. 3 months before his birthday, I started researching for construction party ideas. And for those of you out there who's also planning a construction party or any party for that matter, I tell you, look no further than Pinterest! It is now my  go-to app for pictures, creative ideas and designs! The only problem for me was, there were so many ideas that I didn't know where to stop! :)

So let me show you a quick picture of what one main segment of the party looked like..

A construction party wouldn't be complete without construction games, would it? :)

A photo booth complete with hard hats, tool belts and dialogue boxes!

 Sand quarry. This party was an indoor party so I think it's pretty nifty that we had sand play!

Hubby's work of art. A tunnel!

Here's the invite card that was mailed out to our little guests.

And what's a birthday if it doesn't come with a birthday cake..

And pardon me while I shout this out loud, "I BAKED THIS CAKE!"  

I am known by many titles; mother, wife, scrapbooker but I am so NOT a baker. So for me to attempt to bake a cake of this size and design albeit a messy, you-can't-go-wrong type of construction cake, let me just stop and give myself a pat on the back and say, "Good job, Jen!" :)

A lot of details went into the preparation of the party and like menial labourers, we cut, stuck, joined, knead, paste everything together, but it was well worth the memories we created and the fun that we all had.

This was the first thing our guests saw when they stepped out of the elevator.

And this was what greeted them at the door..

And this...

Even the recycling bin for the cutleries and trash bin had a party feel to it

How it looked closed up..

 

Suffice to say that Ollie had a great time with his classmates and friends!

For the rest of this blog I will be sharing the details and process of how the party came about. It might be useful for those who's planning a party. Please read on if you want to know just how uh, crazy we were putting it all together..

What took the most effort was undoubtedly the "snack" table and the background. Thanks to all the creative people who posted on Pinterest, there were so many fun ideas I could implement. When I was planning his party, I thought that a boy's party should be simpler and easier to plan than a girl's but after this, I've changed my mind! Of course, it could have been a snap if you choose so but here's what we did...

Getting Started

With my hubby's design, the background was printed on removable stickers and painstakingly aligned and stuck onto the wall. 

 

It was easy using blu-tack and sticking the yellow and black "caution" tape on the wall. Simple but impactful effect.

The tool boxes were bought from Daiso at $2 each and used as party favours. But it's what's inside that's super fun. Each kid had a personalised water bottle,  a customized Kit Kat bar, colouring paper and biscuits, everything you need for a hard day's work. At the end of the party, they collected their "pay" before going home..

Specially designed colouring paper

Personalising the water bottles with names.

We also had a personalised thank you note that was attached to the tool box/party favour with a cable tie.

And then there were snacks...

Dirt : Homemade cornstarch chocolate pudding with Oreo and Digestive biscuits crumbles and a couple of worms sticking out!

 Nuts and Bolts : Potato rings and twisties.

Fuel Station : Orange cordial drink with orange slices.

Fuel and Tools : Black straws that we pilfered from a local coffee shop (I'm sorry but it was really difficult looking for black straws!) and taped with the tag "Fuel". The fork and spoon was tied together with a black ribbon with the tag "Tools". All these were printed by the hubs on thick paper and then individually cut out!

I even used a black marker to colour the edge of the tag black as the white core of the paper was showing. if you look closely at the photo above you will probably know what I mean. Uh, OCD?? Probably...

Steel pipes : I created a simple black box to fit the size of these pretzel sticks.

Boulders : Aaahh.. Another self-baked nibble; oatmeal chewy cookies. They were moulded into balls and baked, though by the time they were baked, the base were flattened. They were half placed in a dump truck and half "spilling" into the plate for a dumping effect..

Lumber yard : Wafer biscuits..

Extra note : These are cupcake toppers but by the time I was done with the pudding, birthday cake and oatmeal cookies, I had neither the energy nor the enthusiasm to bake anymore cupcakes. I thought it adorable so wanted to show it to you anyway.

Birthday Cake : Because I am a novice and it was the first time I was attempting a cake of this size, I thought I had better do a trial run first.. So I baked the first one halved the size. It turned out to be a tad dry and I ruined 2 rounds of buttercream in the making.. sigh.. I think I'm gonna stick to scrapbooking.

Thank God for plastic toys! It made my cake look decent enough to be presented.

I used this delicious chocolate cake recipe from a good friend. You can find the recipe here http://aspoonfulofsugah.blogspot.sg/2010/08/perfect-birthday-chocolate-cake.html

I will hasten to add that my cake didn't look anything as beautiful as hers but thankfully it was good enough for some of my friends to have 3 helpings! 

The day before the birthday, I started baking at 3pm and with a couple of breaks, I didn't finished till about midnight! I made 2 rounds of chocolate cake and 2 rounds of buttercream. So many back-breaking hours later when I gingerly placed the cake into the cake box,  I realised it couldn't fit into the fridge! In the cake box, it was just too big!! At almost midnight, I panicked and the poor hubby had to "dismantle" a couple of shelves in the fridge to accommodate my cake.

Uh, you can see how messy it really looked like under the buttercream and I wasn't even trying!

Taking shape..I love doing the embellishments on top of the cake. Placing green dessicated coconut as grass, pouring spoonful of oreo crushed biscuits as earth being dug by the excavator, using pretzel sticks as pipes, pouring more Oreo biscuits as mounds of dirt and I love that dump truck carrying "soil and mud". So fun!

This is the only thing that is remotely scrapbooking about this post and it is that I die-cut some alphabets and the number 3 out, stuck them to toothpicks and into the cake to form the words "Oliver is 3".

Now on to the games...

We liked the concept of pinata and children receiving sweets and goodies but we do not relish the idea of whacking a star or rabbit, oversized as they may be and 3 year olds do not have sufficient strength. So we made these "pigeon holes" instead.

They were filled with sweets and biscuits and all kinds of yummy things. I even placed a couple of special cards that say Collect your special gift from the Project Manager which happens to be me of course. I would then give them even more fabulous organic fruit treats and yoghurt biscuits..

However, in all honesty, I wouldn't do this again.. We had a tough time deciding how to do the pigeon holes. Initially, I scored and folded the pigeon holes using 300gsm paper which still wasn't thick enough so it kept wobbling which made it difficult sticking the crepe paper on the mouth piece. And we had no idea how to stack them up. We almost wanted to give up on this idea until 3 days before the birthday, the hubs was walking along a construction place and saw these thick styrofoam containers that was going to be thrown. He collected them from the site worker and voila, we have our pigeon holes. I must say, God must have taken pity on us! hehe..

I'm glad we managed to get the pigeon hole done as it was obvious that the children had a great time with it..

Happily placing all their goodies into little goody bags.

Talk about a serious party indeed!!

 It was too funny to see all the children in a straight line waiting their turn patiently to punch a hole using a saw, screwdriver and whatever they could get their hands on! I was pleasantly surprised that even the older kids wanted a go at it! 

And to know how successful this game was, after all the sweets have been pillaged, the pigeon holes were disassembled, to put it mildly, and taken out to store their sweets and used as toys of some sort, the sort that only kids will understand. :)

The Tunnel.

Boys like tunnels right? Short of getting an expensive air bubble tunnel which was beyond our budget, we had to make do with carton boxes. So this activity was technically free if you exclude the labour cost of which my husband will have you known that his fees are exorbitant! :)

First the carton boxes were laid together as the hubs decides on the formation. They were joined together using duct tape. Then he used brown paper, crumpled them up and stuck them onto the boxes, effectively covering up the brands and other images on the boxes. And then decorate with the caution tape.

The best part was, the kids didn't know better. A tunnel is a tunnel is a tunnel! And they all crawled through it over and over again..

The idea of a photo booth is catching on at weddings and parties. We thought it was a good idea to capture all the precious moments with our family and friends. And it was inexpensive. The adult hard hat costs $5.50 which you can get from most hardware shops and the toy tool belt that comes with a kid's hard hat cost $4.

We arranged it in a corner where we could placed our hard hats and tool belts and we even made some dialogue boxes that says Stop and Hard Labour. It was the easiest activity to arrange but unfortunately, it was also the least utilised. The belts and tools were taken away by the kids playing and so were the dialogue boxes.. hehe

See, here's one pic of Ollie taking the sign away  :)

We were so busy serving our guests that day that we didn't have time to urge them to take photos at the booth. I was glad a few did though. Here's one of us goofing around..

 And off he goes with the hard hat..

At least these 2 had a go at it..

This was taken a day before the party.. taking a break amidst the preparation.

Last but not least, the sand quarry. That was a real hit with the kids as well. I mean, which kid doesn't like sand? We placed sand collected from a neigbourhood playground and dumped it in a big elongated carton box. We secured it to another box underneath to serve as a table. Then threw in some trucks and construction vehicles.

One boy in particular, let's just call him the Sandman, came to the party, took 5 minutes to warm up, headed straight to the sand play and was there almost the entire duration of the party except for food and drinks! Too cute! I'm assuming his parents enjoyed the party?! ;)

The only setback about having sandplay indoor is that the sand inadvertently spilled out and the area surrounding the box gets sandy!  

Overall, we had a great albeit tiring time brainstorming and assembling the entire party! Most importantly, Ollie had a fantastic time with his friends and we created lots of priceless moments captured on photos and also now on my blog. Verdict : a successful party!

Next year, when he turns 4, I think we'll just ask Ronald to plan the party for us. Ronald McDonald that is!

Happy Birthday, buddy! We love you!