Fire Station Birthday Party

Our sweet Benjamin turned "6" in mid-November and he requested a "fire fighter" themed birthday party for his first "friends" get-together.

Since daddy is currently a fire captain with a suburban fire department, I took full advantage of a "themed" party location!

Now, I don't know about you, but I love finding party inspiration out in blogland and Pinterest, but I've got to be honest...many of these child-themed parties, while a delight to the eyes, are a bit over the top...budget wise...for this fire fighter/stay-at-home mom family! So I tried to create a memorable party for our little guy on a conservative budget.

I created the party invites on Snapfish.  They have "in-store pick up" locations and I wanted to get the invitations out quickly.  In addition, I had a cute picture of Benjamin that I had snapped while visiting daddy at the fire station one afternoon that I really wanted to use.  Here's how they turned out...

I used the invite as part of the table decorations at the fire station. To give the invite a bit of a "pop" I mounted it on black glitter card stock and trimmed the edges using a pair of Fiskars scissors.

The colors for the party were light blue, red, and black.  I pulled these colors from Benjamin's bedding. (Ignore the sponge bob sheets in the background! ;)

Table decorations were quite simple.  (I felt it was important to be respectful of the fire fighter's space.  After all, these men and women work/eat/sleep at the station for 24-hours...their home away from home.  I wanted to be conscientious of that fact and not invade their space too much!) I used light blue for the table cloth and red and black paper products.  

Plastic utensils were wrapped in paper napkins and tied with a sweet ribbon!

Balloon bouquets attached to authentic fire helmets were also part of the table setting as were the red velvet cupcakes with the fire fighter themed picks I created here.

(Fun Fire Fighter Fact...the color of your helmet determines your rank within the department.  Red signifies fire fighter/fire medic, black is for lieutenant.  Fire Captains wear yellow helmets and Chiefs sport white.)

Finally, each child went home with a simple goody bag filled with fire fighter scrapbooking stickers as well as a fire truck Matchbox car.  In addition, I included a few pieces of candy to accompany this "thank you" message that I had put on display...

Overall, I was able to do all of the decorations, goody bags, candy, and food for around $75.00. 

By the way...those 6 helium balloons...were the last ones available at the store for the day! I felt really bad stepping up to the counter before another customer did...after the manager walked over and told the clerk to shut down the balloon station.  Why is helium so hard to come by anymore???