Benjamin's Home Depot Construction 3rd Birthday

We take Ben to the monthly kids' workshops at Home Depot and he always really enjoys them and he loves construction vehicles so we thought we would combine them for his 3rd birthday party.

The invitations and decor were made using the Stampin Up MDS set Bday Under Construction and I used a ton of ideas from pinterest (check out my birthday party board here).

I updated my usual birthday balloon wreath with a party zone sign.

 Pilon birthday banner beside the table.

 What's a birthday party without balloons?! Of course in construction colours!

 Banner over the fireplace where gifts were placed.

Set up just like at the Home Depot Kids' Workshops. Our location doesn't host parties but were generous enough to set us up with aprons and bug house and bookend kits for all of the kids as well as lending us hammers for the kids to use free of charge! There are tons of more pictures of the kids working on their projects, but I didn't want to post pictures of other people but had to show just one to give you the idea!

This cake is what was the basis for the whole theme. Benjamin saw this cake over a month before his birthday when we went to Dairy Queen and asked for it repeatedly for his birthday! It was the only thing that he asked for so of course he got it!

Benjamin's Very Hungry Caterpillar 2nd Birthday

Benjamin turned 2 last year and we had a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed birthday party. I was inspired by lots on pinterest (check out my birthday party board here) and ended up with this!

I used a Very Hungry Caterpillar download and the Stampin Up MDS program to create the invitations as well as a birthday banner (that didn't photograph well at all)!

I was also planning a caterpillar outside in helium balloons leading towards the door but considering it snowed, that idea got eliminated and settled for this instead in the entranceway!

 Little chinese lanterns set up as a caterpillar in a window by the table.

The food display. I made little food tags using the downloads as well and bought the majority of the food that the Very Hungry Caterpillar eats throughout the story for the guests to eat before cake.

 I made the "caterpillars" out of cake pops and put them into foam flower displays covered in fake leaves.

The goodie bag for the party was a bug house as well as home made play dough in green and red so each guest could make their own Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Upcycled Tires

Ben is a huge climber so I thought I would make a fun project that he could climb. I decided to spray paint some tires in fun colours and stack them various ways every time that we pull them out for him. He loves to climb them and down the road, when he's older, I'm sure he'll love using them as an obstacle course somehow.

This was super easy to do. I went to a local tire shop and got different sized tires from their garbage pile, spray painted them with primer and then with the colour.

Personalized Hanger

A good friend of mine recently got married and seeing as I got her lingerie for her bridal shower, I wanted a nice way to present it. I saw these gorgeous personalized hangers that you could buy on etsy but they were ridiculously expensive once shipping was added on, so I thought I would try it out on my own!

To make it, I bought wooden hangers and drilled a hole on both sides of the hanger for the wire to sit it. I used 12 guage wire and sketched out a design on paper before trying to experiment with the wire. Once I had a design I liked, I copied it using mostly just my hands and needle-nose pliers to tighten up some of the loops. I tried doing her last name countless times, but I just couldn't get it to look good, so I opted just for "Mrs." Once the wire was arranged, I cut it down to size and super-glued each end into the holes.

I think it turned out pretty well, would have been nicer to have the new last name, but to pay an extra $30 for it on top of the lingerie and other gifts was just too much for me!