My children's birthdates are four days apart. Being a girl and a boy it makes it challenging to find a gender neutral theme.
For my daughter's 4th and my son's 2nd birthday we decided to do Toy Story 2. I first made computer generated invitations on parchment looking paper. To further add to the aged look, I burned the edges to look like the old, burned wanted posters of the wild west days. The front of the invitation said "Wanted: "child's name" for Kena and Reid's birthday party." The inside gave all the details. For the party, I made the kids, about 7 of them, cowboy vests out of brown grocery sacks. I cut them to fit a child and decorated them by gluing "fringe" that I cut using the scraps from the sacks. I also used jute rope to make the loops (and also cover the top edge of the fringe). We bought a sheriff's gun set complete with holsters and badges for each child and cowboy hats bought at a party supply store finished the look. These were their take home gifts. For the party I made a piņata to look like Al (dressed in his chicken costume) from Al's Toy Barn that steals Woody. The decorations consisted of Toy Story plates, cups, and streamers with matching colors. The tablecloths were red and white picnic gingham checks. I also bought the Toy Story window clings to put on the door to greet the guests. We served brisket, beans, potato salad, bread, cake, and ice cream. I decorate cakes so the cake was iced in chocolate and I used a darker brown to draw lines on the cake to make it look like wooden planks complete with knot holes. I also used an icing technique to make images of Jesse (for my daughter) and Woody (for my son) to put on the cake. It looked GREAT and it was all edible! The kids had so much fun and I got a lot of my ideas from this site. Thank you!
BirthdayPartyIdeas.com - Birthday party ideas for your kids birthday party celebration. NutcrackerBallet.net - Nutcracker information, performance directory and ballet reviews. GreatVacationIdeas.com - Vacation and travel planning ideas, travel logs and trips.
PartySuppliesMall.com - Check out some great party supply retailers for your celebration.