Part III

There’s no easier theme for a birthday party than horses! The internet provides an incredible range of copyright-free material that you can use for your horse party project, and you’ll get even more ideas searching for material.

1. Birthday Corral Welcome Sign - Your child can paint a large sign, i.e. “We’re Having the Best Horse Party Ever, Barn None!”. Surround the border with stamped horse shoes, your child’s art, or cardboard horseshoes. Bright and colorful is good! Hang it outside to welcome guests as they arrive.
2. You can cut out many cardboard horseshoes. It’s an easy shape and you can have dozens in a very short period of time. Spread them on the walkway or in the house for effect. You can use them to guide kids to grain, water trough, chuck wagon, exercise arena, wash rack, show arena, fillies, colts or buckaroo rooms. You take it from here.
3. If you are lucky and you have a trophy or, better yet, lots of them, use them as serving containers (place a bag or container inside first) and place them at strategic locations for a bold decorating statement.
4. You can also use rosettes and ribbons. These make excellent decorations for a horse party.
5. Place a small cup or glass inside a pair of riding boots or cowboy boots. Fill with sand or marbles. Glue cut out horse shapes and balloons on dowels and arrange. Presto! A great centerpiece!
6. Purchase a pair of boots, derby or cowboy hat that you can use after the party. Use a bag or container as liner and fill with snacks for munching.
7. Using regular construction paper, cut out rectangular frames. Cover magazine horse pictures with these frames and hang as art.
8. Balloons, balloons and more balloons are fun. With a Sharpie or kid paints, you can easily paint horse silhouettes on them for an easy decoration.
9. Get creative with stickers, stencils and Breyers horse figurines.
10. Use clean articles of riding clothes, riding hats and helmets or horse t-shirts and drape or pin them around like art.
11. Another use for the simple horseshoe shape can be to string or tape them together to make a long chain. String your horseshoe chain around the room. Here and there, hang a cutout horse shape or small plastic horse or ribbons. Work intense but very effective!
12. Accordion-fold freezer foil, wrapping or butcher paper. Trace cowboy boots or hat shapes to fit from one edge to the other edge - You are making a long chain so be careful to leave a small bridge to form a chain.
13. This is a great balloon weight idea. If you have access to real horseshoes, spray paint them gold, silver or a hot color. Add lots of bling to snazzy them up. Attach inflated balloons and spread them around the party area.
14. Make a rustic “picnic table” by putting four bales of hay tightly together. Cover with a clean horse blanket, sheet or cooler.
15. Hang a long piece of butcher paper on the wall. Have your child draw or paint a horse mural. Or, use this idea as an activity for the guests. Provide the kids with paint and brushes, chalk, crayons and stencils, and have them produce a one-of-a kind horse scene.
16. Cut crepe paper streamers into two lengths: long to simulate a horse’s tail and somewhat shorter for the mane. Tape the short lengths together to create the mane and tape the long lengths together for the tail. Tightly secure with a string or ribbon. Tie the mane into the birthday girl’s pony tail and the tail appropriately lower. She can then proudly prance around during the party.
17. Cover the party table with your theme. You can be very creative by cutting out horse pictures and gluing them along the border of a table cover of cloth or paper. Your child might be happy to provide the art. You can purchase horse borders, decals or fabric with horse theme designs.
18. Purchase a horse piñata and horse balloons for easy, quick decorations.
19. Have your child draw and color horses and horse pictures. Use them to liberally decorate the party area. Otherwise, you could also cut pictures from a horse magazine or two, make paper frames for them and hang them. You could also use these cutout pictures as placemats. Use them as they are and glue several together or cover them with clear sticky plastic to make them more durable.

At this stage of your party planning, you probably have more ideas than ever. Now you really have to zero in on exact themes, decorations, and putting your horse party plans into reality. There is no end to the number of ideas you’ll come up with!

To be continued in part IV, activities.