The Garbage Truck Birthday Party!

Hello, hello! I'm here with the OFFICIAL garbage truck birthday party update! Now that it's over, I can continue on with other aspects of my life. (Which is sort of a relief!) 

All in all, I gotta say that Mr. 3-Year-Old's birthday party was a SMASHING, BASHING, TRASHING success this past weekend. 

This child's LOVE (read: obsession) with the garbage truck inspired our shindig.  

We hit a few bumps along the way. . . like the AC deciding to stop functioning, a few hours before the party. NOT COOL. (Literally)  But our crew of family and like-family friends were troopers, and we had lots of extra fans.  And thankfully it was fixed during the party and we had some relief.  In the meantime, the mimosas and chocolate milk (excuse me - "muddy milk")  helped keep the grownups and kids happy.  

The cake tasted FABULOUS.  It was chocolate cake (from a mix -gasp!) with a big thick layer of "dirt" inside.  You know, the fabulous pudding-Cool Whip-cream cheese deliciousness, with cookie crumbles? I just mixed the cookie crumbs right in, and used the whole thing as filling, rather than putting it in cups like dirt is "traditionally" eaten.  Then I frosted the cake with my new FAVORITE chocolate frosting.  It was simple to make - a fairly normal chocolate frosting recipe. . .but with the addition of 2 Tbsp of espresso - oh my GOSH, it was amazing! (And I must say - I think the cake was much cuter in person.  It looks pretty BLAH in this picture!)

You can find the recipe, along with a delicious looking cookies 'n cream cake, which was part of my inspiration, at Restless Chipotle. 

Oh, and I forgot to take another picture, but you can see the pennant banner that I made, in the background.  I die-cut a pennant die, on my Big Shot using green cardstock for the back layer, and magazine pages for the inner layer.  Then I layered on circles and spelled out his name. 

I did favors for the kids - these are pencil cups from Dollar Tree, that  I lined with squares of black trash bag.  I found some great reflective stickers (see photo below) at WalMart, that I thought went with the theme pretty well.  Then we hit the jackpot at the last second, and found little "green" earth-friendly notebooks in the Target Dollar Spot for 70% off! Woohoo! I also put in a Go-Go Squeeze.  It fit the color scheme, and Go Go is a pretty earth friendly company, so I decided that it fit.  ;)  I used my circle punch to make a quick tag, and stuck cork sticker-back letters for each child's first initial. (Cork stickers from Close To My Heart)

Here's my random picture - I wanted to show you the silverware holders . . a soup can, lined with garbage bag, along with the cute stickers from WalMart.  

The wreath was REALLY fun to make.  I spent a whole ONE DOLLAR on it.  I got a foam base from Dollar Tree, and used the fabulous tutorial at Living With Lindsay.  I used newspaper pages, junk mail, and shopping bags.  Then I diecut those little flies, which I used on the cake, the wreath, and wherever I could stick them.  I used a butterfly wing die, from The {Stamps} of Life, along with a circle die.  I used a silver Sharpie pen to draw their eyes, and then attached a piece of floral wire.

Probably my favorite project of all. . . .our matching garbage truck t-shirts.  I used a freezer-paper technique to stencil them.  There are a TON of great tutorials out there.  I looked at a couple, and then went for it.  Do a google search, and you'll get LOTS of great advice.  I looked at a lot of clipart, and garbage truck images, and then just created my own stencil for it.  (And I just used tshirt paint from WalMart.)

We got a box in the mail, the week before the party, that had TONS of this brown paper in it, so I saved it and made garland from it.  Easy peasy, and it went perfectly with our decor.  I forgot to take a pic, but the other thing I used for the table was instead of a tablecloth. . . .I used black trash bags, bubble wrap sheets, and a big cardboard box to add some dimension.   Because of our little AC situation, I didn't bring the cake out until we were ready to eat.  It was going to be the centerpiece of the table, on top of the cardboard box, but instead I just stuck one of Tanner's toy garbage trucks on there instead! (Improvise!!!)  We did the party in the morning, so we had lots of good brunch foods. Muffin-sized mini quiches (which I found on this blog, but seem to be originally from Food Network)  mini grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids, fruit, bacon, cottage cheese, and of course CAKE! 

Just another little decoration.  A large size soup can (I think it had crushed tomatoes in it.)  I stuffed it with garbage bag plastic, and some crinkled wrapping paper and added the picture of my little guy in there, and some of the flies.  It was a nice little extra decoration.

If you are planning a garbage truck party, check out my Garbage Truck Birthday Party Pinterest board with LOTS of ideas I collected along the way.  There are some other AMAZING garbage themed parties out there.  I have links to some of our favorite garbage truck books, cute coloring sheets, cake ideas, games, and crafts.  I had so much fun scouring the web for ideas!!!

Update: This has been such a popular blog post. . . .apparently we aren't the only garbage truck loving family out there! Looking for more party fun? Check out our Fire Truck Birthday Party post!