What happens when Stephanie of Spaceships and Laser Beams brings together her son’s love for police and her very own Cops and Robbers Printable Collection? A party fit for a hero of course! Planning a party can be overwhelming and expensive to say the least. But, Stephanie is sharing her son Sam’s Cops and Robbers 4th Birthday Party and how you too can have a fabulous party on a tight budget.
It seems to me that most little guys go through a phase playing “good guy/bad guy” and my son, Sam, is no exception. Adding to that interest, one of our neighbors is a police woman and Sam has been fascinated to see her in uniform. All of that enthusiasm pointed to a Cops and Robbers themed party for his last birthday…and I just happen to have a Cops and Robbers printable collection in my shop that I wanted to use. This party was a lot of fun to put together!
In any printable collection there is usually more than one way to use a piece. For example, at this party the table backdrop is an enlargement of our decorative paper and a cropped image of the thank you card. It is also serving as a poster in Sam’s playroom now that the party is over. I used our napkin rings as decorative edging on the base of the cake display. Party decals were used to embellish serving glasses, on the cake and they also personalized memo pads used in the favor kits. So, I like to encourage moms to use imagination when looking at potential decorations. Using the collection pieces in more ways than what is stated as the original intent also gives a nice cohesion to a party theme.
The dessert table featured a red velvet cake which was topped with polymer replicas of the policeman and the robber. The top tier was in policeman blue and the bottom wore the same color as the robber. The money bags were actually cake pops by Evie and Mallow, who also created the darling cop and robber cake pops.
One side of the table played up the cops and the other, the robbers. The good guy side offered bags of cop corn (popcorn), vanilla cupcakes in our “cop car” wraps and donuts on a pedestal. The baddie side had chocolate cupcakes in the robber’s getaway car wrap, bags of heist corn (rice cakes) and donuts setting on top of locked, metal boxes.
The jailbird stripes used for covering the beverage station table was actually wrapping paper—one of my favorite go-to’s because there are so many wonderful color choices, it’s inexpensive and easy to clean up. Water bottles wore our wraps with a policeman riding a motorcycle; the straw medallions featured the policeman image too.
The kids had fun posing in front of a mock line-up; did you ever see such a tough little gang?!
The kids played “toss the handcuffs” and a “catch the robber” game. I cut out a stack of the robber images from our 2” decals and hid them around our yard. Each child was given a little bag to hold what they found.
For favors, I made police kits that included a memo pad, aviator sunglasses, an ID badge, a flashlight, a moustache, a mini lock and key set and a magnifying glass. Girls received “evidence” (costume jewelry) and the boys received mini police cars. They were also each awarded an official looking document for Certification of Completion, a policeman’s visor and they got to adopt a police dog, too.
The kids had fun; I had fun! Sam thought the whole thing was “awesome Mommy”…sweet words any mom would like to hear!
Visit Stephanie and her Cops and Robbers Collection at Spaceships and Laser Beams. Thank you Stephanie for sharing this amazing party with us!
Toni Thomason