Invitations & Decorations

Whether you buy or make invitations, it's easy to incorporate farm-related images:

A barn-shaped
invitation is
easy to create.

• Anything with pictures of baby farm animals will be appropriate. Look for spring-themed stickers or stationery with baby chicks and so forth. If it's the wrong season, ask your stationery store if they have such material in storage.
• Red barn: Use a white pen to draw a barn-door "X" on the front of a folded sheet of red paper, then write the party details inside.
• Hay: Cut up small, narrow strips of yellow paper or even include real hay in the envelope with your invitations.
• Write the party details on sturdy card stock (like an unlined index card) and wrap it in a bandanna. Tie with jute or brown string. Or, buy a length of bananna-print fabric at a sewing store; cut fabric into small squares and glue onto the back of the card stock.

Check party stores and
Web sites for theme-related
tabletop decorations.

• Fill little red wagons with hay. You might even get a few parents to pull children around in "hay rides."
• Ask children to come in jeans or overalls. Tie on red bandannas as they arrive.
• Make a pretend fence with cardboard "planks," scissors, a marker, and packing tape.
• Put toy tractors and farm animals on the table.
• If your party is in late summer or fall, decorate with cornstalks or wheat bales.
• Set up a pretend milking station using a saw horse, surgeon's rubber gloves, a milking stool, water and a bucket. Fill the glove with water and tie off the end. Hang underneath the saw horse (which you could paint white with black spots). During the party, you could prick the tip of the "udders" with a pin and let children squirt water into the bucket.
• Make individual animal headbands using wide construction paper strips. You may need to staple two lengths together, as one length is not long enough to fit around a child's head. Cut out different colored ears, combs (roosters), manes (horse or donkeys), cotton balls (sheep), etc. to paste to headbands.