My second child turned 5 last week. He loves airplanes (like his daddy, who is in the Air Force). So, we had an airplane themed party. I got lots of ideas around the internet, especially on Pinterest (love that site!). Here is what we did:
I decorated in blue and orange. There was a bunting made of paper airplanes (my hubby made them), balloon clouds, and a small backdrop of cloud fabric I had in my stash. I made signage for check-in, food court, restroom, and baggage claim. It was cute.
As the kids came, they colored some luggage tags (from Oriental Trading).
They played "find the planes in the clouds". We put some small toy planes in a box of packing peanuts and let the kids dig around for them. Then they played with the planes for a bit.
Put together and decorated some foam gliders (from Oriental Trading) and flew those for a bit. While they played I got things cleaned up for lunch, our in-flight meal.
In the lunch boxes was a sandwich (choice of turkey or ham), some orange slices and some chips. They also got some Sky Jello (
recipe found here...except I used store bought Cool Whip instead of whipping my own cream). We had some little servings of Cheez-its, Goldfish crakcers, blue jelly beans, and blue chocolate covered pretzels. And there were water bottles with our little printed labels on them.
After lunch they played for a bit and then wanted cake and ice cream. I used a Wilton shaped pan for the airplane cake. I think it turned out pretty good (and tasty).
After cake came presents and more playing. When it was time for the guests to go, we gave them a goody bag/box and a marshmallow propeller pop to go. The goody box had some aviator sunglasses, a paratrooper toy, bubbles, york peppermint pattie bites (blue and white), orange gummies, and a plane made of candy (
found here). And they also got to take home their luggage tag and foam glider.
Everyone seemed to have lots of fun. Now on to the other 3 birthdays this fall (we have lots of fall birthdays in my family).
I like to make the printables for a party, but I know that not everyone else does. So, I'm giving you mine to use if you like. The above picture is what I made. I have taken out the 'airline' name to give you a blank picture to print. I used orange and blue colors because it's easy to find orange things this time of year and blue is a good complimentary color for it, but you can change the colors of any of the items to suit your needs. 
