Country-western cowgirl party: Emma is 3!

Mosey on in, y’all! Have I got an epic and amazing cowgirl party to share with you! It’s the work of one of my favorite party planners (and my sweet friend!), Sara. You might remember Sara and her daughter Emma from last year’s fabulous rainbow birthday party. Sara and Emma are back this year with a country-western hoedown filled with rustic details, fun party games, and classic red bandannas.

This is a perfect backdrop for a country-western party! Sara says, “My brother, who’s a carpenter, made the signs. They were just scrap plywood and he used a torch to make those light burn marks. He also cut those zig zags on the edges but I think they would still look great without it! I painted the sayings with black paint. The best part about this theme was that the more old and rustic looking the better so nothing had to be perfect. Normally I would trace in pencil first and be a nervous wreck before that first brush stroke but with this I TRIED to do it quickly and as NOT perfect as possible. I even sanded a little bit over the paint once it was dry to add to the ‘rustic’ look. It was SUPER easy to do!”

Then, the straw bals were free: “I found a local farm supply store to let me borrow the straw bales…SCORE!”

The party included a bounce house, so Sara set a “cowboy boot basket” outside of it so that cowboys and cowgirls could bounce barefoot.

Hats and bandanas (both from Oriental Trading) make for festive – and inexpensive – decor!

Burlap from the Christmas Tree shop serves as a backdrop behind the buffet tables. The fabric pennant banner (hung in the corner) was homemade.

Bandana napkins are a cute find from Oriental Trading. Sara says, “We ordered food from Famous Daves. It was awesome, it totally went with the theme!”

Cheerful yellow sunflowers are a pretty accent against all of the red. A bit of twine wrapped around the vase is a nice touch!

I am obsessed with these cutlery buckets!! The silverware buckets were from the dollar bin from Target, and Sara added vinyl stickers to them.

Printable buffet cards label all of the food, like these homemade corn muffins.

I love this tree stand! It’s made from two “slices” of a fallen tree. They’re just stacked one on top of the other. No glue necessary!

The birthday cake was a two-tier cake topped with sunflowers. “My extremely talented sister-in-law bakes all of my cakes and cupcakes,” Sara says. “She’s sooo good at it. She used red fondant and then drew the bandana designs by hand.”

Emma’s special birthday outfit is a homemade bandana skirt, a jean vest and a white tank top, plus authentic cowboy boots, of course!

The “sweet saloon” featured miniature sunflower cupcakes, s’more pops, and more! Sara says, “The centers of the cupcakes are mini Oreos. I chose to make little cupcakes as they were mostly for the kids but if you were to make bigger cupcakes regular Oreos would work too.”

This handsome cowboy is Emma’s big brother, Ryan.

A variety of sodas and lemonade were available at “the watering hole.” The Coca-Cola glasses were a steal: 2 for $1 at Dollar Tree.

The water labels (“Emma’s Well Water”!) are also from Chickabug.

Sara planned lots of games and crafts to keep kids entertained. She says, “The hair braids were fun headbands for the girls to wear. The kids also did pony beads (left over from last year…shhh!) which they used to made necklaces, etc. I googled ‘cowboy coloring pages’ and printed a bunch out for them to color. And I bought cowboy stickers so they could make cowboy scenes on white paper.”

“My talented sister in law drew the ‘pin the badge on the cowgirl’ game. I got the badges, wrote their names in sharpie, and then attached thick double sided tape on the back. Then the kids took their badges home as favors, too!”

The kid-friendly horseshoe toss is such a cute idea! “My brother made the horseshoe stand out of some plywood and a dowel and my mom made the horseshoes out of felt and rice. We were going to actually ‘play’ for a prize but since I have mostly younger kids they just had a ball playing on their own.”

Now that’s a party favor. (I’m impressed!) Sara says, “My mom made the ponies from a tutorial on Chickabug. Aren’t they cute??! I found a great deal on those socks so we made them all different colors. I made the bandana bows to put on the girl ponies, then tied printable favor tags from Chickabug to each one.”

The bandana hair bows look adorable pinned in the stick ponies’ manes!

Sara says, “The babies’ favors were cowboy duckies from Oriental Trading wrapped up in a bandana and tied with your favor tag. The girl babies also got bows. The bigger kids got their pony, cowboy hat, bandana and badge. I wasn’t going to let them play with them until they got to take them home at the end but I am SO glad that they did during the party because they had a BLAST!!”

You can tell so much love went into this party – thank you so much for sharing, Sara! Happy 3rd birthday sweet Emmy!