Wild West Outlaw 2yr - Checkered Tableclothes

For my daughter's 2nd birthday we decided on a Wild West theme because she was highly into horses at the time and I knew I could get creative with an Outlaw twist to this theme.

::: INVITATION ::: Early in my research I found the most adorable clip art of a 50s style photo of a blonde toddler girl decked out in western wear complete with gun belt. I chose to use this image for the invites so after downloading western fonts, I opened up my paint program and got to work. The top sheet was the cowgirl with Outlaw Zoey's 2nd Birthday!" under it and it was surrounded by a - - - pattern on all sides (which made for easy cutting). I printed 2 per each 8.5x11 sheet leaving about 1/4 inch at the top. The 2nd sheet was the same size and included all the party details in different western fonts. It said: "HOWDY PARTNERS! We be needin you buckaroos to come celebrate Outlaw Zoey's 2nd Birthday with a rip-roarin' Wild West Showdown. LOCATION DATE High Noon. So jump on yer horse and mosey on over to dig for gold ride a donkey lasso a pony eat some mighty tasty grub and have an all around boot stompin' good time! -- No city slickers allowed ya hear! (Parents included) Dress for the West and to impress! A reward goes to the finest lookin cowboy cowgirl or indian! (Accessories available where needed just'a holler at us!) Give us a "Yee-Haw" if ya can make it or a "Dag-nab-it" if ya can't at NUMBER. The base sheet was a larger piece of a deep red thick scrapbook paper that I cut with jagged scissors. It was assembled together with two hole punches at the top of the smaller sheets through to the red sheet and tied with rope. SO cute everyone had a fit over them!

::: DECORATIONS ::: I ordered steer heads from oriental trading and taped them up on the park pavilion posts as well as on flat wall surfaces within the park equipment I borrowed real antique wagon wheels from my mom and had them scattered about we bought a pvc piped tent material Sheriff Station at Big Lots for $15 (great photo op and activity for the kids as well as awesome décor a pvc piped and tent material teepee tent I made several wanted posters with my daughters photo printed on a crème colored paper and then burned the edges  I made tons of signage out of brown cardboard a "Welcome to Deadwood est 1875 pop. 54" that was put near the pavilion entrance and several more around the playground like  "Dead Mans Drop" (slide) "Happy Trails Bridge" "Standing Rock" (rock climb) "Twister Alley" (swings) etc. All signage was burned and discolored for that old west look.

I made 3-d cati out of green poster board (taking two sheets cut into the same cati shape staple them together and then suff with newspaper. Note: the stuffing part is VERY hard and on windy days its hard to keep them upright!) I also took a large sheet of cardboard and made a "Crazy Horse General Store" front. I drew two doors with handles on an approx 5' tall sheet with black marker. Took a smaller square bordered it with a thick line of black on all edges then made the name signage. Glued that to the top of the 5' piece approx at the half way point of the sign. I then took a small strip of cardboard that was about 4" tall and 6" wider than my store front. I took strips of aluminum tape and covered the entire piece and then attached that below my sign like an awning. At the pavilion I tied it around a post through holes at the door handles and hung a sign that read "CLOSED! - Robbed by Outlaw Zoey!" and I pasted a couple of her wanted posters to the 'doors'.

::: GAMES/ACTIVITIES ::: Upon arrival each child was outfitted with a bandanna a wild west name tag ("Tarnation Trace" "Hollerin Hillary" "Lucky Livie" "Avery Oakley" "Darlin Braeyden Clementine") and given a gold nugget pouch. While we waited for everyone to arrive they were encouraged to play on the Wild West playground. Once everyone was there we let them start the games. We had "Prospector's Plateau" (Gold dig in a metal wash tub - the biggest hit of the day) "Donkey Trail" (my parents own a mini donkey farm and brought one saddled up for the kids to ride) "Lasso the Pony" (rope covered hula hoop tossed onto rocking horse) "Shootin' Range" (silver painted sand filled soda cans with bean bag toss and a electronic laser gun shooting 'tin' cans and 'breakable' bottles -both plastic of course- off a log) "Rope the Steer" (my brother in law brought real ropes and a practice steer head on a hay bale for the older kiddos) and "Indian Name" (my mom dressed up as a wise old Indian lady asked the kids their favorite activity and their favorite animal to come up with each kids Indian name i.e. 'Singing Eagle'. She wrote them on little cards I made that were white sheets of paper with indian symbols printed on them glued to that same invite red card stock with the jagged cut edge with feathers glued to one side.)

::: FOOD ::: The pavilion had wooden picnic tables that we covered with red and white checkered table covers from OTC the food tables were also covered in them and had a sign reading "Chuck Wagon" attached to the front. We served BBQ Beef sandwiches large pickles potato salad chips and salsa. The "Waterin Hole" consisted of bottled waters lemonade and sweet tea. The Chuck Wagon table also had burlap "flour" and "sugar" type bags my mom made as well as some of her antiques that fit the theme. 

::: CAKE ::: Zoey had her own special cake that was a small rounded 2 layer cake that was topped with crushed vanilla cookies to look like sand with Cowgirl Dora and Cactus Swiper figures 2 boot candles and a # 2 candle on top with a 3-d scrapbook sticker belt buckle on the front side of the cake. For everyone else we had cupcakes with white frosting w/primary colored edible stars sprinkled on top.

::: FAVORS ::: The favor bags were brown paper lunch bags with big $ drawn on each one. I filled them with small coloring books I made from western printable coloring page found around the net 1/4 sheet sized. They also contained horse topped bubbles frogs snakes lizards wild west stickers braided friendship bracelets cowboy rubber duckies a pack of plastic farm animals and wooden touch and feel farm animal board books (found on clearance .50 each reg price $5!!) the bags were gathered and tied with rope and looked like wild west loot bags! The best dressed winner got a small plastic tin can shoot out set and the runner up got a plush donkey pez dispencer set.

Needless to say I was worn out but the smiles on all the kids faces were priceless especially the huge one on my daughter's tiny face!"