Carpenter Party -40yr- Hard Hat Guest Book

We recently had a surprise 40th birthday party for my husband - who is a carpenter by trade.  It was a carpenter themed party and all the guests were asked to wear a toolbelt to honour the birthday boy.  We rented a small school house turned hall.   We had his uncle barbeque chicken for us (we are fortunate that he does large chicken barbeques as a business) so all I worried about were salads and dessert. 

We had a cake made with chocolate tools on it.  We served snacks and salads in carpenter type vessels such as paint trays, empty paint cans, buckets that had drywall compound in them at one time etc. and used things like spackle trowels for cutting cheese balls etc.  The centre pieces were bright orange candles that sat on a flat work glove and around it we spread screws.  That sat on a piece of sand paper and the whole thing was placed on a bright orange plate.  The table cloths were grey. 

We used a white hard hat for the birthday boy to wear, and I attached mini sharpie markers - the kind with the key ring on them - to the side of the hat so and used it as a guest book.  I had made up some money with the birthday boy's picture on them (called them Bud Bucks after his nickname) and when the guests played games etc. they would get a bud buck.  Those were used to choose carpenter related prizes (the one with the most bud bucks picked first etc.).  We has such things as renovating and decorating magazines, kid type wood working projects you can get at home depot etc., tool boxes, a couple shirts with our construction company logo on it, carpenter glue, some handy manny items for kids etc.   

The games included:

The Work Boot Scoot - which was a heel to toe race around a tool box in work boots like a relay team game.

The 'Safety First' game - like pin the tail on the donkey on using small nails into cardboard with the logo from our workers safety insurance company.

The Hammer Slammer - a game of standing on a piece of 2x4 opposite your opponent with large foam hammers (got at Toys R Us) and you basically hit eachother until one puts their foot on the ground or crosses the line.

Hamma Time game - competitive hammer the 4 inch nail into the wood game.

Just Duct-y game - tossing a roll of duct tape into a tool box.

The Gropin Bolts game - a bunch of bolts are in a container that you can reach into but cannot see into (I used an icecream bucket with a leg off a pair of long underwear stretched over top - cut a hole in the lid and snap it over so the underwear don't come off)and the idea is to choose a nut and reach in to see if you can find the bolts that fit (we gave them 40 seconds - for 40 yrs). 

I ordered tool shaped gummies and tool key chains for favours for adults.  I put them in a wedding favour box and put a tool shaped sticker or tool brad on the box.(www.orientaltrading.com) I attached a cardstock hammer with the kids names on it (to prevent fighting!) to some with tool stickers instead of key chains for the little ones.  We also displayed his baby picture, or course, along with a Life magazine from 1968 and a Tiger Beat one from 1978. (E-bay)  

I printed off Bob the Builder and Wendy toilet paper crafts (google search 'handyman craft' or 'handywoman craft' - I forget where that came from) and lots of colouring pages about Handy Manny etc. with a bucket of markers, crayons, kid scissors, glue sticks and left them in another room for the kids to do (not for the faint of heart, because that room was upside down by the end of the evening) 

I put a drywall container - the long rectangular kind - in each of the bathrooms with emergency incidentals in them ; tide-to-go, hand lotion, fem. Hygiene, breath mints, kleenex, rolaids, tylenol, contact solution, toothpicks, band-aids, etc. 

After dinner I showed a powerpoint slide show of him as a baby up through his 40 years.

It ended thanking his parents for having a son 40 years ago :)  It was so great!  I love party planning and I think this one got the most compliments ever.