Firefighter Party signs

The signs were not as cool as cardboard firetrucks, but I just loved them. 

I liked making them too. One of my favorite parts.

I found some fire fighter type buckets at a local craft store.
Red, of course.
Using a letter stencil I placed the word "Fire" on the buckets.
I have no idea if firefighters use these buckets and if so for what, but I saw it in a Handy Manny episode and that's good enough for me.

The local craft store also had a fiery selection of papers as well.  

I decided I wanted to make the signs 8 1⁄2 in × 11 in.
Why? That's standard and I hate cutting, so that made step 1 easy.
The other colors I cut exactly 1 1/2 inch smaller.
I used 4 colors.I think it's fancier that way

The stickers were also obtained from the local craft store(s).
I scoured all of the local crafts stores as most of them
had a severe shortage of firefighter-looking stuff.

On the "grab a hat and badge" sign,
the word "kids" is made out of chip board letters.
I wanted to use stuff I just had in the craft closet so
I spray painted the letters to match and bam!

This one caused controversy around the house.
I ran out of letters and did not want to get more,
so I decided to get creative.
The sign made perfect sense to me,
but the hubs saw to it that I catch hell for it. 

I loaded the bottom of the buckets with a
hot glued foam piece, a dowel and rocks from Nik's rice bin. 

I decided to cover that rock foam mess with something fun.
I had recently dyed some rice with kool-aid for another project and still had rice and kool-aid.

I dyed a red and an orange and let Nik help me scoop it into the buckets. 

He loved the signs. He touched all of the letters
 and told me what he thought they said. 

Nik kept saying things like "wow it smell good in here".

He discovered the rice was what smelled good and that it tasted good as well. Mmm Kool-aid
Unfortunately we had to release Nik from his scooping duties.

The bucket signs turned out fantastically,
and no rice was swallowed in the making of the bucket signs.

In addition to the bucket signs I made a folded table sign as well.
Cheeky fireball jokes. 

I searched the web for a free fire template as I
 was sucking in the drawing fire department.

I cut out a ton of the fire's in red, orange and yellow construction paper.
I glued them to the inside of a piece of cardboard.
This cardboard was the piece cut from the top of the firetrucks.

I used my remaining letters to spell out a
message to the parents of the party.
No worries mom's and dad's,
let them drive it, kick it, drag it and just have fun. 

I wanted the kids to have a sack to take their firetrucks home in.
And in a lot of cases, fireballs too.
I let Nik stamp the bags with a kid and a dog in a play fire truck. 

Home depot has free wooden flooring samples. 


I glued a rubber stamp to the wooden
side of that sample and let Pickles get to stamping.





I really like the firefighter feel the signs gave the party.
Overall a firefighting party success. 

Cardboard Fire trucks

I loved this project.
The best part about it was all the children's reactions to the trucks. 

I went to Home Depot and purchased three large cardboard boxes.
I was not about to ask my friend's kids to sit in old garage boxes. Eww.
So I bought some. 

I had to enlist the hubs for this one as a box-cutter was needed, and he is far more proficient with a box-cutter than I am. Or I have a tendency to cut myself, could go either way.

I love when he helps because he always adds a little something
extra, above and beyond what I asked for.
I asked him to cut the tops off of the boxes.
He gave me that, plus as an added bonus windshields AND doors.
I used painters tape on the edges of the boxes for stability. 

I spray painted all of the boxes red.
I will spare you all of the pictures of me in the backyard cursing the wind, the boxes, the neighbor's dog, the spray paint, etc...
I ran into a few speed bumps, most of which were self-inflicted bumps. I neglected to buy a red with a primer. What was I thinking?

I used random thick card stock to make the window templates,
and cut out black and white windows of the two sizes.

I used Modge-Podge to put the windows on as well as the head lights.
The headlights are made out of a yellow construction paper circle.

I put the Modge-Podge on and let it sit. 

 I made the ladders out of tongue depressors.
I glued them in a ladder-like pattern and spray painted those white. 

I wanted to make sure some part of the truck was jazzy in the sun.
My original thought was to use black glitter paper on the windows but that seemed excessive, so I opted for glitter on the hub caps instead.
The hub caps are caps of Gatorade bottlecaps spray painted gray.
Modge-Podge on the tops and sprinkle with a fine glitter.
Press the glitter down...

And Ta-Da!
Twinkle twinkle. 

The "wheels" are little foam circles from the dollar store.
Two circles for a dollar. 

I just glued the caps onto the foam circles.

  

I used a large stencil to paint the word fire on the back of each truck.
The steering wheels are made from green foam wreaths.
I wrapped a black ribbon around the wreaths and
glued them to the inside of the boxes. 

 

These were a hit.
The kids were all using their imaginations and having so much fun. 

Firefighter Birthday party

The firefighter birthday party was awesome!

At least, that is the feedback I received from Pickles.

We had firetrucks! Definitely the hit of the party.
I will have a "how-to" on the firetrucks coming up. 

I was just looking for excuses to put flames on things,
so I made up a few signs just to have a reason to use them.
Well, and of course, I wanted parents to know it was cool if their
child ripped the steering wheel off of one of the trucks.

I found an amazing shop on Etsy that sells unpainted fire trucks.
I placed washable markers and fireman stickers on the table and let the kids color their own favors.



All the kids seemed to really enjoy coloring the trucks.



Even the "big kids".

All of the children got a fireman hat and badge.

And of course, food.
PB&J's with gummy worms and fruit.

I was also serving "fireballs".
Another excuse to use flames on a sign.

I made signs for all of the tables as well. 

I will have pictures in the how-to posts.
The hubs thought it was just hilarious to ask me over and over
What's a "color a take it home?"

The fire truck on the help yourselves sign is sweet.
I stenciled "Fire" on all of the red buckets thinking it would give the
decor that extra firefighting touch. 

Lets stop a moment and talk about paper straws.

They are clearly not made for drinking.The box assured me these were "a stylish alternative to plastic straws".
One would think the whole water + paper = wet mess
concept would have made me think twice about my purchase. 

The firetruck cake was handmade by one of Nik's grandmothers.
She is fabulous and so are her cakes.
Pickles loved it and got to keep the firetruck topper toy afterwards.

Nik received some very generous gifts
 from some awesome people.

Look At Me...  I'm Three

Photography supplied courtesy of Christina Seddon-Meyer