My son’s first birthday was this month and we have been preparing for weeks to celebrate it in a big way. Since his favorite toy is a dump truck he got for Christmas last year, we decided to go with a construction zone theme featuring tons of gold, orange, and white. Everything from the decorations to the invitations and favors were customized with my Silhouette to make the day just a little more special.
I thought I’d share just a few of my favorite party elements today (in case you have a little construction worker of your own), but I’ll be sharing a couple more ideas and a software tutorial very soon.
Construction Sign Banner
The birthday banner was probably the quickest and easiest to create, requiring only a few simple tools and a handful of products. I wanted to mimic the reflective nature of real traffic signs, so I used Stardream Metallic Cardstocks for most of my projects.
Here I’ve trimmed Stardream Metallic Gold Cardstock to 5.5″ x 5.5″ for each letter in my banner (so that I could get two “signs” from each sheet) and rounded the corners with a 0.25″ corner rounder.
Next, die-cut large letters and thin square frames from Stardream Metallic Crystal Cardstock. I used my Silhouette to cut these (Arial font and a square shape with a 0.125″ internal offset), but you can easily use a manual die-cutter as well.
Adhere the thin frames and letters to each gold background piece with Tombow Mono Multipurpose Liquid Glue and punch two small holes near the top of the construction sign at least an inch apart (this helps prevent the flags from twisting around backwards once hung).
Thread some thin ribbon or twine through each flag until you spell out your phrase. At the ends of each row of letters, I also added a construction cone (design # 59770) cut from Stardream Metallic Flame and Crystal Cardstocks. Each piece on the banner was airbrushed around the edges to add dimension (you can use ink and a sponge instead).
The finished banner hung in three separate rows under our party tent and above the gift station.
And if you’re wondering, I chose to use gold and white for the construction signs rather than gold and black because I was trying to keep the decor light and happy.
Dump Truck Party Favors
The party favors were created from many of the same materials…and a lot of my guests commented on the “beautiful papers and envelopes” I used! I chose a simple digital dump truck box design to cut with my Silhouette (design #92968) because I would be making so many of these!
The wheels, axles, beds, and cabins were cut from Stardream Metallic Onyx, Silver, Gold, and Flame cardstock, respectively, using the settings in the Silhouette Studio software for “Coverstock”. This is what 75 unassembled dump trucks look like. 🙂
I was not interested in assembling 75 dump truck boxes by hand with just a bottle of glue, so I turned all of the parts into stickers using my Xyron machine. (Pardon the terrible photo…I was crafting late at night many times for this event and the sticker pieces took up nearly the entire width of my kitchen counter!) Once the box bases were assembled, I could just pick and stick!
A quarter-cup of yellow, orange, and white pearlized chocolate candies were placed into small plastic bags that were tied shut with a 9″ bunch of yellow, orange, and white curling ribbon.
The small bags of chocolates fit nicely into the favor boxes with just a bit of curly ribbon shooting out of each of the dump truck beds.
Custom Embossed Envelopes
The final project I wanted to share today are these custom embossed envelopes I created for the party invitations. Orange Fizz and Lemon Drop A7 Pop Tones Envelopes were stamped with tire tread (front) and construction sign (back, on flap) stamps in Versamark ink, covered with white embossing powder, and melted with a heat tool. This was a little time-consuming, but it was one of the fun touches that our guests commented the most about.
I designed the invitations myself in Silhouette Studio (tutorial coming soon!) and printed them out on 110 lb Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock. This cardstock is super thick, so it’s perfect for notecard-type invitations like this one (you will likely need a straight-feed printer to use it though). The embossed envelopes along with the custom printed invitations really made a statement!
I hope you enjoyed these construction zone-themed party ideas and thanks so much for stopping by today (Click here for the remainder of the party projects)! You can visit the CutCardStock store to purchase many of the supplies I used today…and if you hurry – gold,orange, and brown cardstocks are still on sale!