Ask the Readers: Birthday parties on a budget?

Last year, our 4 year old was SUPER into Dinosaurs. So we through him a big bash at home for something like $75 or less if my memory serves me correctly. We took a bunch of our saved big cardboard boxes (you can also go to appliance stores and see if they are willing to give you some they are just going to throw away) and my husband drew huge dinosaurs onto cardboard boxes with sayings coming out of their mouths like “Welcome to Camasaurs’ Birthday!” “Thanks for coming! We’re glad you could stay for some extra Bites!” yada yada…. corny cute stuff like that. the kids also colored them with crazy colors, making them feel really involved. We did that with as much of the decorating for the party as we could so that Cameron really felt like it was his party. We cut dinosaur foot prints out of cardboard for a 2 games; an egg hunt (eggs super cheap from Oriental Trading Company), and The Dino Stomp (musical chairs to dino music that we already had from a Sandra Boyton book that was all songs inspired from her books). We had cheap prizes like $1 coloring books and puzzles from Walmart & the Dollar Store; all dinosaur themed. We had dino masks from Oriental Trading. We made on our computer and with dino stickers (from OT) Official Paleantologist badges for their “official admittance to the Dig Site” that they got as soon as they walked in the door. They got to keep all of that, the eggs they found with baby dinos in them, and some little dino stamps & stickers from OT. They decorated their goody bags that were just brown paper lunch bags with the stickers, stamps and crayons when they got there (while waiting for other guests to arrive) and then when everyone was there, we started the dino hunt. Oh, and we tried to do a clay project, that didn’t work with home made clay. And we had a play volcano that the kids could make erupt with baking soda and red dyed vinegar. It was some Star Wars volcano play set we had. They LOVED that. And even though the clay thing didn’t work out, the kids loved just playing with the goopy mess anyway. Oh, and we printed yellow warning signs from our comp that said stuff like “Beware, there are dinosaurs everywhere!”. You get the picture.

All of these ideas were from a GREAT website for birthday party ideas: http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com

We had lots of fun, the kids loved it, and it was cheap. Way better than any of those “jump around” places our oldest has gone to. You can find really good deals during the week at those places if you don’t have the time to do all the above. Because it was hard work. But completely worth it.

I threw a princes party for my daughter one year. Their uncle just had given their cousins a princess tent so we borrowed it for decoration. I also went to the thrift store and found a pink rug. We put this in front of the tent and took photos there. I found a frog toss game at a yard sale so we played that and we also painted princess suncatchers. We had a princess tea party. All the girls dressed in their princess costumes. We served little cakes and small sandwhiches and cookies (very inexpensive!). Lemonade was served in the ceramic tea set I purchased from a thrift store for $5. A friend read the princess and the pea story while I acted it out in puppets. We had a cardboard puppet theatre. It can easily be made with a trifold board and any scrap cloth for a curtain. After the story the girls took turns sitting on different piles of pillows and had to guess which pile had the pea in it. Hope this gives you some ideas!

Last year we did a Dora party for my daughter’s 2nd birthday. A lady I sometimes babysit for makes cakes so I bartered babysitting services for a free cake! It turned out really cute too! And something that I wouldn’t have been able to afford if I had paid cash! For the treat bags I took brown paper bags and painted the fronts of them purple, then glued on a face to make it look like backpack. All the treats inside came from the Dollar Tree. You can buy a pack of 6 play-doughs for $1, a pack of 3 bubbles, stickers, even fruit snacks or candy can be bought there. For the game, my husband drew a swiper on cardboard, painted it and cut it out. (Time consuming, but cheap. If you are not artisitic, I think there is a swiper poster you can print out for free on the nickjr website.) We blew up a bunch of balloons and drew stars on them then set them loose in a field to play “catch the stars” and my husband ran around with the cardboard swiper trying to “swipe” the balloons from the kids. It was a hoot!! The kids wanted to play over and over again. We bought hot dogs and buns for the meal and had family members bring the sides and drinks, kind of like a potluck. The only thing we realy spent much money on was that we went ahead and bought the Dora themed napkins and tablecloths, but you wouldn’t have to do that, or maybe just pick one thing to be themed and use plain for the rest of it.

Here is the post from my blog about it: http://benandtabby.blogspot.com/2009/08/2nd-birthday-party.html