Michael's American Airlines airplane themed party!

This weekend I threw Michael a party for being a new hire pilot for American Airlines. We have been waiting a while for the airlines to start hiring again and we were blessed that Michael got picked up by American Airlines so quickly. PLUS it gave me another excuse to throw a party! Luckily lots of his pilot buddies were able to come as well as his family from Louisiana. We had a lot of fun and the kiddos always crack me up when they get together. I have lots of free printables to share with you guys as well as some links to sites where I found some of my goodies. It has to be said that I am NOT a graphic designer. I am a veterinarian so digital techie stuff is really not my forte' I just enjoy creating things in my free time. With that being said my files aren't going to be perfectly lined up and some it the stuff you may have to play with to get it just right for what you are looking to do. I just share the files as I used them for myself and hope that other people can find them useful as well. I'm still needing to figure out how to share printable files more easily but until that day comes you should be able to just click on an image to enlarge it then right click and click on "save to my computer" then open it in a photo editing software program like Photoshop and add text or opt to print from there in whatever size you want the file.

 Here are the invitations. They were supposed to be like little passports with real fingerprints.  Each invite was wrapped in postal themed shipping twine with a boarding pass.

I didn't get a photo of the second page which has a photo and the party information :(

Printable boarding passes:

This is the second page in the invite.  Just add your own photo within the square and add your party info.  There's no denoted line for the time of the party and I unfortunately forgot to add that to my invites and had to do a mass text to everyone so I'd say where it says "venue" just add your time in that area.  

Once you're done editing the files just print them as 8X10 and they will all print out the exact right size to then glue the pages together to make them appear to be printed front to back. 

No airplane party would be complete without miniature liquor bottles!  I luckily found these at our area liquor store (I bought everything they had in stock)  I have been told that surprisingly you can not buy these small bottles in Louisiana just FYI.  I stacked them on a 2 tiered candy dish and it worked perfectly for the display of the bottles.

I used tall mason jars for the cocktails and created these little propellers to become straw toppers.  Note:  I used a regular hole punch to punch the straw hole and found that paper straws are not created equal :)  Some straws I had were too small and the propeller would slip down but luckily these I found on sale at 

TJ Maxx were the perfect size.

The mason jar lids were removed (the metal disc) and I just just a 3" punch in some cardstock and then used an x-acto knife to cut an X into the paper to place the straws through to add more color.

Just add your own text to the propellers or leave them blank.

I made this garland using an airplane image I found online of an American Airlines plane and created some 

3-D clouds just using 2 cut out cloud images folded in half and stuck together.  

Because I wanted to make myself even more work a few hours before the party I thought - Banner for the fireplace, so I quickly cut out some cardstock bunting and letters and made this garland.

One of my favorite finds was these HUGE mylar balloons.  I found them HERE and they were only $3.95 each and come in silver or gold.

I created another airplane garland with 3-D clouds as well as this "Fly Away With Me" garland as well to put on my antique hutch.  The cloud paper backing I used I found at Staples.  The suitcases I found on Amazon HERE for $32.00 including shipping.  It comes with 3 suitcases, the smallest one I used on another table.  I filled the suitcases with shredded red paper and then put roasted peanuts in one and salted pretzels in the other.  I also had custom cupcakes and cookies made.  The suitcase party favors I created from scratch because I couldn't find any files that I liked online.  

I covered the dining room table with a plastic white tablecloth then lined the edges with  red and white fringe from Oriental Trading which you may still be able to find HERE for $3.98 on sale from Valentine's Day.  I bought the large wall map from Half Price Books for $4.98. I collect globes so I just used a few I had around the house and set up stations for coloring some coloring pages as well as playing a bean bag too game.  I also got some kite kid favors that were so large I just had to lay them out onto the table. These can also be found at Oriental Trading HERE 

I found a great site with lots of airplane coloring pages HERE  I just printed out a couple images I liked and the set out crayons and markers for them to go crazy with.

It was my intention to have the kids make paper airplanes then decorate them and then have a contest to see who could fly theirs the farthest but they were too busy running around outside to be interested but maybe if we were dealing with older kiddos that would have been a good idea.

These are the files for the "Fly Away With Me" garland.  

I had an old bean bag game from Ezra and Libby's circus party that I just covered with the cloud paper and then cut out the holes and added some banners and planes to to create a new game.  

Here are the files for the beanbag game.

Under the wall map I had a small table that I used for the water bottles and "in-flight meal".  I just got sandwiches from Subway and put a sandwich, string cheese, chocolate, Biscoff cookies, and a small apple in each box.  I purchased the boxes HERE $7.00 for 10 boxes.  The insides of the boxes were lined with plastic so I felt confident that they wouldn't leak and make a mess if stacked.  The large white bottle in front is the mayo that Subway send with the SIX foot sandwich I ordered!  Yeah I was expecting a circular platter and got there and they asked me if I had a truck???  When i saw the giant sandwich I knew why! I used some extra left over fringe for the small table and also made this "Food Court" sign.  

Just cut around the borders of this banner.  I just wanted the shape not the blurred edges created from blowing it up so much.

My favorite cupcake place here in Fort Worth is Leah's Sweet Treats.  She has made my last few birthday cakes but this time I wanted something different so she made me these fondant topped cupcakes.  I also knew I wanted some custom cookies to be a focal point so I contacted LuxeCookie in California and she made these American Airlines/Flight themed cookies and shipped them just in time for the party.  The inflight snack printable banners I got from Wills Casa .  There are some great printables and ideas from his site.  I based my designs on his editable templates so I HIGHLY suggest visiting his site to make your own.  

I also covered Hi-C juice boxes with this "jet fuel" box wrapper.

The most time consuming part of the design process was making these suitcase favor boxes.  I filled them with a pair of plastic aviator sunglasses, a compass ring, candy, and airplane suckers.

Cut along the dotted lines and fold where the image color changes to create a subtle color change.  Then just tapes the edges and voila!

Cut out the handles individually then glue them together (image side out).  Fold the brown portion so only the black handle is facing up and glue down the brown part to the top of the suitcase.

I printed out these luggage tags and attached one to each suitcase.

Thank you tags to go with the suitcase luggage tags.

The snack food circles I printed out onto sticker paper and can be punched out with a 2" circle punch.

Outside I just put a few balloons and a "Now Boarding" sign which I didn't realize that I never shot up close sadly.  Since it was an "adult" party I didn't want to be too cutesy.

Ours said "Now Boarding" 

  BURK Air (in the red banner)

 flight No. 0123

 Dallas/Fort Worth

I left this one blank so you guys can add your own text

Lastly I made these realistic boarding passes with THIS site.  You just enter the info ex. passenger name, destination, time of departure, airline, etc. and it does the rest.  I then turned the boarding passes into a garland.

Enough decoration talk now to the good stuff.  Crazy cute kids!

Crazy cousin play time!!!

Herman got a little more attention then I think even he wanted.

Handsome Hudson

Libby didn't leave her bow on for long.  She's the only girl with all boy cousins but she rules the roost!

Ezra wore his flight suit to celebrate our aviation theme.

Sweet Cooper and Ezra

Time to be SILLY

Uncle Weston is ruler of the backyard!

Hopefully you can use some of these images for your own party.  If I can think of anything I didn't include I will add those files at a later time.