Bicycle Theme Birthday Party

About this time last year I was in the middle of planning my son, Cody's 8th birthday party- a BIKE party! It turned out to be a lot of fun!

Here are some specifics of what we did for this party:
*Invited guests to bring their bikes
*Decorated our bikes
*Surprise visit from a police officer
*Bike rally around the park
*Water bottles wtih homemade strap for each guest as pary favor!

Cody's birthday is July 2, so I like to do something patriotic for his birthday. I like to try and create some kind of fun cake that match the party's them, so I attempted a bicycle tire cake... not my best one, but I tried!

Also, I surprised my B-day boy and guests with a visit from a local police officer. He was awesome and drove up with lights and sirens....

And he gave a great lesson on bicycle safety and proper helmet wearing. He even brought some little things for each child to take home. This police visit was a HUGE hit at the party!!

I brought a bunch of things (in patriotic colors) to decorate the bikes, like plastic red & blue plates, pens, stickers, streamers, etc. And I let the kids brigade around the park while I got the food ready to serve.


As a party favor, I gave each guest their own water bottle with a special label and shoulder strap that I made for each one. (I used a variety of grossgrain ribbon- from Walmart- and let the kids chose which one they wanted, then wrote their names on them with a Sharpie.) I found a tutorial for this on a blog, but lost the link when my computer died!! (Please let me know if it was YOU so I can link up!!) But HERE is where she got the tutorial to make hers.

*The things I did different from FamilyFun's directions were:
1- Used GROSSGRAIN RIBBON instead of belt webbing (so much cheaper and easier!!)
2- Used "Fray Check" on the ends of my ribbon instead of nail polish (either one should work fine)
3- SEWED the ends together instead of the dungeree button.

Also, I felt inspired for this party theme from THIS website.