Western Party 1yr - Cradboard Western Town

My husband and his family are in the horse business and so when we had our son it was no question what his first birthday party would be… western!!  I started 3 months in advance for his party.

I made an entire western town out of stove, refridgerator and dishwasher boxes donated by my local Sears store. This project was a family event, my dad painted western scenes of cactus, mountains, sunset and that is what we covered the walls with. I also used in for a background and set bales of hay and an old saddle for picture taking, it was a hit!! The western town consisted of a big red barn with a black roof, real barn doors that opened and every building was big enough for the children to get in. Every building was also named after a child who was coming to the party. The barn was named "(name of an invite)livery". The barn also had a small corral out to the side where I put some small bales of hay and small toy horses.

Next to the barn was the sheriff's office, we (my family) painted the office two shades of brown and my father-in-law cut bars in the windows with swinging doors. We also built a porch on it and put a small cardboard sign over the door which read Cowtown SHERIFF-(birthday boy/girl's name). Next to the sheriff's office was Cowtown Assembly- we painted the church white with a big steeple and cross, put light brown shingles on the roof, and made stain glass windows for the church by melting wax crayons on the stove and dipping wax paper in the melted crayons, this makes a marbling affect. I also made a sign for the church and put what time services were and I named the pastor as an invite. Beside the church I put the birthday table. I had a big lattice behind the table covered in burlap and bandana with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY COWBOY…(birthday boy/girl).

For drinks I got a galvenized bucket and put a punch bowl inside where I served red kool-aid. For the cake ( I was feeding around 50 people) My mother-in-law and I made 3 cakes, 2 boot cakes decorated with liquorish and reeses pieces for the stitching, and red food coloring. We also made a green cactus cake where we took coconut and colored it yellow and put it on the cake to represent stickers!!

For the party supplies I went to Party City and got the bucking bronco and cowboy themed cups, plates, napkins, and a large cut out of the theme which I hung on the lattice. To the right of the cake table I had a hair parlor. I painted the parlor lavender and trimmed it in white. I also took a shoe box and painted it and hung it outside of the window and made a small arrangement in it to represent a flower box. I then cut up an old lace curtain and hot glued it in the window. Outside I hung a wreath on the door and a sign that said "( an invites) HAIR PARLOR. Next to the hair parlor I put the Wrangler Inn. The wrangler Inn was blue and yellow. We cut out little balconies from each window and put shades in the window. I put a ceramic cowboy on one of the balconies. I pulled a wrangler tag off a pair of my husband's jeans and hot glued on the door. I made a sign and put " The proprietor of the Wrangler Inn ( an invite). The last building I had was Q.M. Mercantile and I painted that building red and put a front porch on it and made small vegtable signs and hung outside. The Q.M. stood for two people we had invited.

To put the finishing touches on the town My father-in-law cut down some small trees and made a fence that connected the whole town and birthday table, he also made a big entrance out of sticks and spelled out COWTOWN just like you would see at an old ranch. I also decorated with lots of hay and tack. The invitations asked everyone to put their chaps on and saddle up for a good time. I had a sign in table where I had professional pictures of my little boy in his western attire on his wooden rocking horse set up for everyone to see and a big 4in. Pvc pipe that told the direction of Cowtown.

My loot bags were brown gift bags with raffia and I got material from Wal-Mart that had cows on it - I cut them out and cut small bandana material and gave them clothes and bandana and mod-podged them on. The loot bags were filled with water guns, sheriff badge, a ho-bo loot filled with candy ( made out of yellow string and bandana material), cowboy bubbles and boot keychains. The party hats were small doll straw hats that I trimmed with bandana material and put yellow sring through them and a small red bead to hold the string in place. Every guest received a wallet size photo of the birthday cowboy also.

The party was a total success and after the party someone bought everything that I made!!! If you noticed I did not have a saloon, I had my son's party at the fellowship hall at church and did not feel it was appropriate. This was a time consuming project but my little buckaroo was worth all of the trouble!!  p.s I also had children's old west songs playing in the background.