Farmall on the Farm: Follow-up DIY Instructions

I promised a follow-up post on the details for some of the birthday crafts I made for the Farmall on the Farm bash and here they are. If you missed the post for my son's 1st birthday, check it out here.
I detailed a few of the items I made for the party below, if you have any questions feel free to comment at the end of this post.

Fabric Banner

I stopped by Walmart one day and happen to walk through the fabric section when these fabric beauties caught my eye. I couldn’t believe I found Farmall fabric, only at Walmart, right?  The party was months away and I was stoked, not sure how I was going to use it, but decided to purchase a couple yards and went on my way.  I have seen several adorable fabric banner’s all over blog land I decided to make one of my own, and bonus, after the party I found a great place to reuse it (I’ll do another post on that later). Making these banners is pretty easy just a little time consuming, like most crafts, right? 

So I trimmed and then folded my fabric so the strips would be about 8” in length, I then cut strips about 1”-1.5”, whatever your preference, you can decide the size that works for you. There really isn’t a wrong way to do this, which is what makes this project so perfect! After all of my strips were cut I took each strip and laid underneath the jute string (whatever you choose to hang your banner). The section of the strip that is folded should be at the top. 

Open the folded section a little to make a loop and pull the ends of the strip over the string and through the loop of the fabric. 

Now lightly tighten by pulling down on the ends of the strip. 

You are done with the first strip; continue on until you have the length of banner you want. When you are finished hang up and admire your work!

Birthday Banner

I used 4x6 Kraft chip 2-point pennants from Hobby Lobby for the paper backing. I found paper that matched my theme and cut to the size of the chipboard, then I used mod podge to adhere the paper to the board. Since the chipboard already had holes in them for hanging I used my single hole punch to punch holes in the paper that I had glued to the chipboard.

I used my Cricut Explore to cut the scalloped circles & letters to the desired size I wanted, and then attached to the chipboard using mod podge. After everything was completely dry I strung the chipboard onto a jute string for hanging. I had some extra fabric remnants so I tied a couple pieces to the banner to bring the theme all together.

Cake

Now I am not much of a cake decorator so I was only hoping that what I had imagined for this cake would turn it and that people would actually be able to tell it was a farm! I think it turned out pretty good for my first try. I would love to hear what you think or if you have another idea that could have made it even better! I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was delicious, even better!

I used your average white cake box mix and added a little almond & vanilla to it, nothing fancy. I spread butter and flour in the cake pan to the cake would easily be removed from the pan. Once completely cooled I flipped the pan over till the cake removed and left so it was upside down on the try. I covered in chocolate frosting and added the stick pretzels to the outside to act as the fencing. I then took green food coloring and added it to the shredded coconut to make grass. I sprinkled onto the cake for the grassy areas of the farm. I then took a few rice chex and stuck them together with a little bit of frosting and stuck onto the cake to act as the hay bales. I then began scouring the house for other details to add to the cake. I found a few wooden trees from my kids train table and added those. I sprinkled Grape Nuts onto the cake for the dirt road, make plow tracks in the frosting and added a little windmill. We had a few small tractors that I added to the cake and then it was complete! I was pleasantly surprised at how well it had turned out since I am not a cake decorator! It received lots of attention and tasted great, I would say a success!

This party was so much fun to plan and design, hope you all enjoy it and that it helps in planning your future tractor party!

Toni