Boot Scootin' Birthday Party

So, it's no secret, I LOVE a themed party! My oldest daughter, Iyla is turning 3 and this weekend we hosted a Boot Scootin' Birthday Party in her honor! Miss I* is a sweet girl with a BIG personality! She LOVES to dance and sing, especially to country music; so to celebrate her special day we threw a country-music themed party - it was a BLAST! :)  Here's a recap of the fun!

The Decorations!

I love Autumn, especially here in Michigan where the fall weather is lovely and the trees change into the most spectacular colors. The color palette for this party were warm autumn tones; rust, sunflower gold, and deep red. Miss I* is a girly-girl in every sense of the word, so we featured lots of fall flowers and feminine colored paisley print throughout the party.

I really wanted to convey a sweet, simple, homemade aesthetic to the party and these centerpieces were just perfect! I created a mock-table runner using bandannas. Super easy and very inexpensive (love that!)

 One empty mason jar + cut flower stems = done! :) I LOVE the way they turned out!

This awesome archway welcomed all of our guests to the "Lucky 3" ranch :)

The arch was made from pvc piping wrapped in leaf garlands and embellished with fall flowers.
The "Lucky III" Ranch sign was made from wood & spray paint.

What's a Boot Scootin' party without some good ol' country dancin?
We used an existing canopy to create a dance floor for the kids. They had a blast playing under here! The hay barrels also served as a great "seat of honor" for the birthday girl to sit on when she opened her presents.  I {heart} these sweet bandanna buntings. I made them myself; they were fairly easy to make and really added a lot to our decorations.

Another fun, personalized touch was the "photo booth" we created along the back garage door. I made large "speech bubbles" containing country song lyrics, movie quotes and some common "cowboy talk" :) Guests young and old had fun posing for pictures under the captions!

A glittery "Chuck wagon" sign directed everyone to the food table. We scattered cute lil' pumpkins around to tie in the colors and added a fun menu to tell the cow pokes what chow we were servin' up :) {Lunch was served in metal pie pans for that Ol' West feel!}

The Food!

Our menu: Southern Fried Chicken, Golden Nuggets {aka chicken nuggets for the kidlets}, BBQ Beans, Taters {potato salad}, Horse Feed {coleslaw, fruits & veggies}, Gigi's Special Sweet Hot Apples, and chips w/homemade salsa - yum! Drinks were sweet southern style iced tea and sarsaparillas -- Our sarsaparillas were bottles of IBC Rootbeer, Orange Crush, and H20 decorated with super cool personalized sarsaparilla labels. {Read all about the labels here}

For dessert, we served hot doughnuts and cold apple cider. Cider mills are a big part of Autumn here in Michigan... is that something that people do all across the country? I'm really not sure, but they were a nice change from cake and ice cream and they really complimented our party theme.

The Activities!

When Iyla's little friends arrived to the party, they each received their very own horse and had the chance to dress up "country style" from a table we set up with cowboy hats, sheriff badges, bandannas and glittery star stickers. Miss I* loves to play dress up, so it was fitting to have a dress up station at her party.

The horses were a hit! The kids had a blast participating in horse races.

We also played a game of "Spin to Win" {I ordered the board from Oriental Trading here} - the way we played was, every kid gets one spin, whatever number they land on corresponds to the number of western themed "silly bands" they received. {The western theme, knock-off silly bands also came from Oriental Trading Co}

Each child decorated a pumpkin. I love doing a craft with toddlers - not only do the kids LOVE art, but they get an additional favor to take home - win, win! :)

The favorite activity of the day was definitely Miss I*s Dance Hall! These little party animals had a BLAST dancing all afternoon! We set up a karaoke machine, and WOW! Let me tell you; Karaoke + toddlers = the best. time. ever. Seriously! ;)   Such a fun day!

The Favors!

In addition to the horses, cowboy gear and the silly bands; each little guest took home their pumpkin, a small cowboy coloring book and crayon set {ordered here} and a package of trail mix. We put the trail mix in clear cello bags and tied each bag with shiny ribbon and a "Happy Trails" tag {from Chachke Designs}Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the favor bags - oops!

The Wardrobes!

So the very best thing about having a mumma who designs clothes has to be that you always have the perfect outfit for very special occasions, right? ;) Here is a pic of the birthday girl in her "Cowboy Cutie" birthday party attire :)  Her shirt features 3 adorable cowboys (b/c she's 3!) and I made sure her skirt was extra twirly --just right for dancing the day away! ;) Her leather  cowboy boots were a total score from a children's resale store ($9! Yea!) and her hat was a plain child's dress up hat that I embellished  with a birthday-girl tiara to make it more special.

 I {heart} that so many of our friends dressed up too! So fun! ;)

I know this is a LONG post; but it was a super fun birthday party for a SUPER special little girl and I wanted to share all the crafty details with you!