I'd wanted to make each child a stick horse as a favor before the party, but I ran out of time. Instead, I borrowed an idea from a friend who'd made a hobby horse for his daughter once using poster board and PVC pipes.
We cut the pipes to 28-inch lengths, and then sawed a small slit across the top of each one.
I then drew a horse head and traced and cut it 15 times (for the number of kids expected at the party).
I wedged the horse head into the slit in the PVC pipe and reinforced it with glue from a hot-glue gun.
Party guests were invited to decorate the hobby horses with crayons, markers, stickers, googly eyes and yarn.
Birthday parties are often social experiments, and it was interesting (and somewhat predictable) to see the boys opt out of sitting at the craft table and decorating their horses with the girls. Still, each one made sure they took a hobby horse home and their parents said they'd likely complete the craft there.