Since her birthday is August 23rd, I wanted to take advantage of being outside with family and friends, and utilizing our screened porch and backyard. I'm a December baby and never had a birthday party outside. I knew we were going to have a lot of little kids in attendance so I thought putting on a country fair with games they could play would be fun and it was a total success! Who needs a jumpy house when you can quickly create your own games from stuff you can find around your house, Dollar Tree store and free wood pallets.
First I searched on Pinterest and pinned a lot of great ideas other moms did for their kids' parties. Here's a list of the games we had:
"Bucket Ball" - My dad screwed $1 buckets onto a wood pallet I sourced for free from a lobster shack down at the shore. The owner let me take as many as I wanted and now my husband is using them for his own projects. The wiffle balls were free from my sister's boys.
"Ring Toss" - I cleaned 9 Sierra Nevada beer bottles my husband enjoyed and my dad glued them to a piece of plywood I sourced at Michaels for $4. I could have cut a piece of scrap wood but I was just running out of time. The rings were a pack of 5 glow in the dark bracelets from the Dollar Tree.
"Tin Can Alley" - I stacked two of the free wood pallets, used Ikea baskets as a base that I already had lying around our home and when Harper finished her "Graduate" puffs, I cleaned the can and used those as my tin cans. It was super cute.
"Gone Fishin'" - We filled up Harper's kiddie pool with water, and we bought two sets of little fishing pole & plastic fish at the party store. They were on sale for $1.99 per set since it was the end of the summer.
"Bean Bag Toss" - My friend let us borrow her bean bag toss tailgate game which was perfect
"Photo Booth" - we hung up a quilt between two trees, set up a bale of hay in front and my nephew helped me make a ton of masks I downloaded for free (search on google) and printed a photo booth sign (another pinterest find). I bought a few more fun dress up items at Dollar Tree.
Photo Booth sign printable - http://www.eleganceandenchantment.com/free-printable-photo-booth-sign/
As for décor, I wanted quilts everywhere, bales of hay and old vintage looking windows. I sourced the quilts from Mike's aunt who quilts and sent down 4 from Massachusettes, perfect! My father picked up two bales of hay one we used at the "Photo Booth" and another was out in the backyard as seating with a scrap piece of fabric that I had. Driving in our neighborhood one night I saw that my neighbor was replacing all his windows and had a stack of 6-pane wood windows he was going to trash. I knocked on his door and he let me take two of them. I printed all of Harper's monthly photos and set them in the window panes using masking tape and scrapbook paper.
Other photos on display were taken at a local farm by my sister. Its nice to have a photographer in the family. My sister had a "Smash the Cake" session with Harper which was super cute. Other décor items were 4 photo books I created on Shutterfly to document Harper's first year, mason jars with cute cut out tops (Amazon) and pink and white striped straws from Michael's, mini bale of hay from Jo-Ann Fabrics and quilts used as tablecloths really added a lot of color to the party. My girlfriend let us borrow her cotton candy and popcorn machine which was a huge hit. The kids and adults loved it. Overall it was a great party, one we will always remember.
If you want to see all my inspiration, follow me on Pinterest and you can source these same ideas.
![]() |
sorry for the blurriness. Harper's Smash the Cake photos on display along with her 1st year photo books and goodie bags |
![]() |
Happy Birthday Harper banner I made with scrapbook paper and I printed out the letters using MS Word |
![]() |
Shutterfly photo books and goodie bags |
![]() |
table set-up with burlap runners and mason jars. You can see the game set up in the background |
![]() |
testing out the photo booth |
![]() |
My little girl |
![]() |
my mom in disguise with my two nephews Jaxon and Wesley |
![]() |
Brooke and Maya playing with "Gone Fishin'" |
![]() |
Our good friends testing out the photo booth, Keri, Trevor, Mason, Blake and little Tess Rose |
The kids loved the photo booth! |