We had a construction party for my son's second birthday.  I incorporated several party ideas from this site.  The invitations were made from scrap booking materials which included a cut out of a boy wearing overalls, tool belt, and a hard hat and cut out dump trucks.  The invitation read (Front)"Ian's Birthday Party is Under Construction" (Inside) Forman Ian is turning two, which means there's lots of work to do. Dress for construction as we anticipate lots of destruction. The party's at the family work site.  Saturday, November 23 will be dynamite. Your shift begins at 10:00 and ends at Noon.  We hope to see you soon." The decorations were solid purple and yellow plates, cups, napkins,table cloths and ballons.  The primary decorations were the children themselves. I got yellow construction hats, toy hammers and screw drivers and child size work gloves at the dollar store.  I also got nail aprons from Lowes which were a $1.50 each. The apron strings wrapped around the children twice and tended to sag in the middle, so we cut small slits in the sides of the apron to run the strings and eliminated the problem.  The tools and gloves were placed in the apron pockets. I wrote the child's name on the front of the constuction hat.  The girl's construction hats, I spray painted purple since this was such a boy themed party. When the children arrived they put on their tool aprons, golves, and hats and went to work at the construction site.  They were too cute. These items also served as their party favors. Prior to the childrens arrival we constructed a very large construction site out of appliance boxes. I got several large appliance boxes from Lowes.  They were very accommodating of my request for boxes. We duck taped the boxes together to form tunnels and rooms and cut out additional door and window flaps in serveral places.  I purchased paint brushes from the dollar store and the children painted the outside of the construction site with tempra paints. (The kiddos had a great time with the painting.) We also got out the sand table with lots of sholves and toy trucks.  I served snacks in paint cans and roller pans.  For the cake, I made a missippi mud dump truck cake. I made the cake and cut it into pieces.  I placed the pieces in the back of a large toy dump truck. I poured additional frosting on top of the cut pieces and then crumbled chocolate cookies on top of that for a real mud/dirt look. For a quick ice cream fix, we scooped ice cream into paper muffin liners the night before the party and put them in the freezer. During the party, we simply put a muffin liner ice cream cup on the plate with the piece of cake -much less mess and time involved. This idea came from a neighbor. We rented child size table and chairs from a local party supply store for minial cost (10 dollars a table and 50 cents a chair). This was great - the kids were comfortable and spent more time eating than at previous child parties we've hosted.  Overall, it was a great party with lots of fun pictures which I sent with the thank you notes.  The birthday boy wore denim overalls, a red flannal shirt and construction boots - excellent photos!