Wild West Party Ideas

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Recreate the frontier spirit with a wild west theme.

You can have great fun just setting up this flexible party.

I have tried to give you lots of ideas on wild west invitations, wild west food and drink, wild west decorations, wild west costumes, wild west games and wild west favors which will be great for any venue. You may have a Home Party or alternative venue in mind.

A wild west graduation party can be set up as an OK Corral, Barndance, Hoedown, Saloon, Barber Shop, Frontier Town, Jail or Ranch.

Wild West Party ideas - Invitations

A brilliant way to design the graduation invitations is as wanted posters.

For the paper use say yellow paper, perhaps using a tea bag to make it look older. Let it dry over night and see the older looking paper. Crush it some to add to the effect.

Free Printable Graduation Invitations

The free graduation invitations page has the wording, free printable wild west invite, paper ideas and other wild west projects to help make your party complete.



Great graduation invitations should set the scene for your awesome wild west party ideas. Guests will be ready to play their part!

Wild West Party - Decorations

Entrance Use one of these entrances to set the scene for your wild west party.

• Hoedown Barn Kit to make your party venue into a real barn dance.


• OK Corral Decorations. Welcome your guests with real western style entrance to get the party started.

Scene Setters

• Saloon Doors, you could make these from large cardboard boxes. Simply draw the pattern and carefully cut them out.


• Using a refrigerator box make an entrance to a mine with a cave style entrance, ye olde mine sign, danger keep out sign, gold coins and a lantern to light it.


• From electrical appliance boxes you can make jail frontage, bank, general store, barber shop and wagon wheels.


• Create the entrance to a mine as a mural. You may be able to do this with cardboard boxes. You would need to draw a mine entrance, a sign saying graduation gold mine and rail tracks, leading into the dark mineshaft.


• Western Standins of cowboys complete with holes for your face. Also you could use wanted poster or rodeo style . Take a picture of everyone dressed in wild west theme.


• Murals and pictures of wild west themes, including a town. If you have an artist friend ask them to draw a giant wild west mural. Ask the guests to color it in, add their own bits and leave messages for the graduates. The mural could also be of a sunset desert style scene. A talented artist could create any wild west scene such as a town, jail, barber shop, sheriff and possee, or a shoot out, for example.


• Hang up banners in wild west style announcing the graduation party. These could be made from a bed sheet.


• Borrow split rail fencing if you can and decorate your backyard.


• Have an area of the party dedicated to outlaws. Include photos of the best movie outlaws, wanted posters and any merchandise you can find.


• Straw bales which can be placed around the venue, make sure they are safe.


• Gold mine complete with gold coins. For younger kids you could have the mine sited at a sandpit. You could hide fake gold coins in the sand and have them dig the mine for treasure!




Try the Desert Sunset Background Illustrations

Great Decorations

• Make lots of signposts with Graduate Saloon, Graduate Barber Shop, Graduate Jail, Graduate Sheriffs Office, Graduate Hotel, Graduate Supply Store, Outhouses, Bank


• Make signposts with No Guns Allowed by Order Of The Sheriff, Waterin' Hole, Grub, Outhouse and Denver 600 miles.


• All writing to be in wild west style language.


• Make jail windows from aluminium foil and put them on the venue windows


• Make a cactus from cardboard and paint it green. Color in black needles with a black marker pen. Also have pictures of cacti and cactus pinata.


• Lots of wanted posters with pictures of the graduate


• Ropes, cowboy boots, wagon wheels, hats, hay bales, pitchforks, shovels and water pistols


• White picket fences


• Use yard signs with say a rodeo horse.


• Hang up lights. Xmas lights would be good, if you can find them there are Santa Fe style, and horse style lights.


• Balloons in many styles are available. These could be fiesta, boots, cowhide, cactus, chili, and longhorn cow styles


• Make wild west bunting. This could simply be colorful bunting or have wild west images on them.


• Streamers hung from door, walls and doors.


• Oil lamps, traditional lanterns and cooking pots.


• Decorate with any toys you have of horses, cows, rodeo riders and cowboys

Table

Decorate your table in wild west style:

• A table centerpiece like a cowboy hat and old style lantern.


• Use a check cloth


• Add dry beans and corn and a mini cactus.


• Confetti in cactus style


• Use bandannas as napkins


• Wild west themes plates, cups and boot shaped mugs.

Decorate your guests, this is a brilliant way to add to the wild west party ideas and getting your guests in the graduation party mood!

• Sheriff's badges


• Ten gallon hats


• Vests


• Pistols and holster


• Sombreros


• Boots


• Harmonica


• Stickers


• Fake handcuffs


• Bandannas


• Funtoos

A great idea is to have a box of guest decorations at the party entrance and hand them out liberally!

Wild West Party Ideas - Costumes

The simplest party to prepare costumes for. You'll want to get into the graduate and guests into character so the wild west party works well.

• Jeans, vest, shirt, boots and a cowboy hat


• Belts, holsters


• Sheriff and Deputy badges


• Add to the effect with water pistols and holsters


• Stetson, sombreros and sheriff hats


• Lassoos, saddles, reins


• Even better if you have a horse! Dress the horse up too!


• Boots and spurs


• Kerchiefs


• Mayor


• Wagon Train cook


• Barber


• Favorite western movie character

If you really want to have authentic wild west party ideas costumes search through this massive costume retailer, they have great wild west party ideas.

Getting everyone into character will bring your wild west party ideas alive!

Wild West Party Ideas - Confetti

One of the great graduation party ideas is to have personalized confetti. The most amazing photo confetti maker can produce confetti using up to 10 wild west photos and up to 3 accent colors. They have packs to suit your occasion.

The wild west photos could be of the graduate in lots of wild west party costumes.

Wild West Party Ideas - Food and Drink

Signpost the food area as the graduate saloon. Wild west party ideas food is fairly simple.

• Beans


• Hot Dogs


• BBQ, with chicken, spare ribs, burgers and pork


• Chili and chips


• Sausages


• Golden Nuggets


• Mashed potatoes and gravy


• Popcorn


• Corn and cornbread


• Tortilla chips


• Lots of salad, including green salad


• Useful, too, to add bowls of fruit and nuts


• Trail mix


• Melon including watermelon


• M&Ms;


• Candy


• Guacamole


• Tacos


• Nachos

Serve snacks in upside down cowboy hats.

Bang a ladle on a pan to let everyone know the food is ready!

To drink, root beer and ginger ale. Lots of water required to keep everyone going.

For the wild west party ideas Cake it could be shaped as a boot, cactus, wagon, wagon wheel, sheriff badge, saloon, jail or rattle snake.
Simply bake a cake and frost it. Cut into any shape you want and use icing to create the image such as a wagon wheel. Add congratulations to the graduate!!

See next section for full cake making details.

Graduation Cake

The wild west party cake is very easy to make as all the ingredients are mixed together in the same bowl.

The Graduation Cake page gives you full instructions on cooking tools, ingredients, recipe, cooking times and frosting instructions. Also lots of great ideas on cake decorating, cupcakes, themed decorations, cake toppers and cake designs, plus lots more.

Graduation Cake Decorating Idea

1) Find someone local who will print an image onto edible paper for you – you need a special printer for this so point trying to find the paper yourself.

2) Cover the cake in frosting with chocolate laced through it – will give it an aged look.

3) Now place the picture in the middle of the cake and pipe the message “Wanted” at the top.

Wild West Party Ideas - Games

• Horseshoe Toss, simply set up a spike and have a start line some feet away depending on age of contestants.


• Scoot Them Away - Set up empty cans on a ledge or small wall. Ask contestants to stand say 6 feet away. They get a full water pistol and must try and push the cans off the ledge. Make sure this works, if the cans are too heavy you could use plastic cups.


• Lassoo Game - set up a fake longhorn, which could be a broom handle, and borrow a rope. Guests must try and lassoo the longhorn. You might allow 2 or 3 attempts


• Water pistol fastest draw - give guests a full water pistol each. Arrange a schedule of who must draw against who. Set up 2 lines say 6 to 8 feet apart. Then just play fastest draw.


• Hire a buckaroo - one of the best ways to get guests excitedly supporting each participants.


• Balloon Cattle Drive - set up a short course in your backyard. Put say 20 balloons at the start. each contestant has the drive the balloons along the course. You could give them say 2 to 3 minutes. The winner has the most balloons over the finishing line.


• Hobby Horse Races.
  
  
  • Arrange a broomstick which may have a rubber boot decorated as a horses head on the end.
  
  
  • Set up a race track
  
  
  • Guests must line and race.
  
  
  • You may wish to give rosettes as prizes.
  
  



• Panning For Gold - to create a water pool you could fill a kiddie pool with water and add lots of sand. Paint pebbles gold and hide them in the sand. Give each player a pan and show them how to pan for gold. (Or, just hide fake gold nuggets in a sand box).


• Every party can enjoy a sing-a-long. Just like being by the campfire. Sing those wonderful wild west classics, Home On The Range, My Darling Clementine, and Deep In The Heart Of Texas for example.


• Line Dancing competition - Set up a dance floor in your backyard. Appoint a judge. Play line dancing music and start guests off dancing. The judge must pick the top 3 dancers.


• Pin the tail on the horse. Simply draw a large horse and arrange a tail with streamers and use sticky tape to pin it on, and of course a blindfold.


• Pass the rattlesnake - for younger guests instead of pass the parcel.


• Obstacle course - make a horse for each guest using a broom handle and rubber boot. You can decorate the rubber boots like a horses head. Arrange an obstacle course and each player must make it through the course without touching any of the obstacles.


• Draw a wild west mural and have everyone color in a part, and sign it. Could be a saloon or town scene


• Draw pictures of cowboys, barns, cows and other wild west images and have everyone color one in. Prize for the best!


• Create your own cow brand - give each guest paper and pens. They must create their own cow brand. Give a prize for the best design.


• Decorate a horseshoe, sheriff's badge and for younger kids have wild west coloring in. Give guests pens and paper.


• Wanted Posters - give guests paper and pens. The game is to draw a wanted poster with the guest of honor as the outlaw. The poster should have all the details like bounty prize, outlaw name and description.

Wild West Party - Entertainment

Hire an entertainer(s), or ask a friend(s), who can:

• A Barber Shop Quartet


• A travelling medicine sales person


• Stunt group to perform a wild west shoot out


• Saloon style song and dance troop


• Theater group to perform songs from a western musical.

Wild West Party Ideas - Favors

Wild West bags with sheriff badges, water pistols, harmonicas, fake rattle snake, fake handcuffs, lanterns, t-shirts, funtoos, ropes, stickers, coins, Red Paisley Bandannas, vests and boots.

Also wild west music CDs would be a great reminder of the party.

Wild West Party Ideas - Music

You should be able to find great wild west party ideas music like the soundtrack to Big Country, lots of John Wayne movies, and even western TV programs.

Wild West Party Ideas - Ideas

Lots more wild west ideas.

• Take a photo of everyone on a buckaroo against a wild west background such as a saloon or expansive big country scene.


• The graduates could also put on their own wild west show. Get them to organize say a 5 to 10 minute scene like a shootout or even just signing Oklahoma.


• Hire a wild west stage set.


• Organize line dancing.


• Have a Honky Tonk pianist playing.


• Play a favorite western film.


• Go to a real ranch with visitor facilities. They will teach everyone to ride, they may demonstrate handling horse and even have a trek where guests can have a real experience of being on a trail. They may even have party facilities and host a campfire party with lots of great food and entertainment.


• If you can, have a trail cooking contest. Give teams of guests the facilities and ingredients to make beans and chili.


• Perhaps you have an archery area local to you. With a professional team of tutors you can give each guests a lesson.


• Set up fairground type games. You can have knocking tin cans over with tennis balls and a Lassoo competition, for example. Some wild west party ideas that make guests compete can be fun.


• Guests could be asked to form rival gangs ahead of the wild west party. They could be the James Gang or The Graduate Gang, for example. They can decide on a unique item of clothing or badge that they will all wear. One of the groups could be US Marshalls. If you do go this route you can have lots of team games where they compete against each other. For fun you could have a game prize giving ceremony for each game and the overall winning team.


• There will be lots of gifts for the graduate. Thank You notes written by the graduate are the best!


• Write out rough timings for the wild west party, including expected games times and when you want to serve the food


• Protect your furniture, wild west party ideas can be messy


• Save money and book wild west party venues for the cheaper weeknights


• Think about the wild west party venue and the likely weather. A tent, kindergarten, YMCA, local park or school gym can be great alternatives.

Share Your Graduation Wild West Party Ideas

If you would like to share your complete wild west party with us send us your graduation party story and photos and we will create your own wild west party page and photo gallery hosted on our site. (Family and friends will be able to find inspiration from your graduation party and comment on your ideas.) If you share your complete wild west party details you will be automatically entered into our next contest. This year we are having a bumper $100 prize fund. There will be an overall winner and runners up prizes. The winner will be the best overall graduation party story and photos.

For wild west party favors, prizes and great party supplies see the World's Largest Party Superstore.

It's always fun to be silly from time to time and you can certainly manage that with Wild West party ideas. Good luck turning your wild west party into reality!

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