Frugul Children's Birthday Parties

[root*children]

Hi everyone!
Summer is always birthday time in our house. The first one is coming up in a couple weeks for my son who will be 5. Here's what I've got so far for frugal ideas. any input, more ideas, or just what you're doing to make your child's party easier on the wallet is appreciated!

Homemade streamers (ala TWG). We've done these a couple years now and they turn out fabulous. We also are fortunate enough to have been given at a yardsale, these rolls of colored paper.

Pinata - we've never made one, so this will be our first attempt. This will possibly be the biggest expense, filling with goodies. None of the families we are friends with, nor myself want our kids to go home with gobs of candy, so I'm thinking a bit of cheapo candy plus tiny tubs of playdoh, stickers, wooden tops (those were from a yardsale), etc.

Homemade Cake & Popsicles - He wants a snake cake, so that shouldn't be too hard.

Games - he wants to do an target shooting game with bow & arrows. So I guess we'll pick up some cheapie prizes at the walmart or big lots or something.

Food - here's an area where I can definitely use input. I'm always deciding at the last minute if it's going to include lunch, or just snacks, or even to do a potluck... hmm...

any other ideas?

[TiredX2]

I think water play is super fun and cheap.

Water balloons.
Slip & Slide
Freeze tiny plastic toys in dixie cups and then let the kids "discover" them by melting the ice off in a small pool.

"Dino" egg hunt--- cut out footprints and go find the "dino egg" (watermelon).

I base food on *when* the party is. With a 5 year old, I would probably not do a meal because DS probably wants lots of games and a meal is just one more problem. I'd probably put some snacks (fruit, crackers, etc...) out where kids can pick at them at will.

I would *not* consider potluck unless you are already requesting no gifts. Then it seems more okay.

Have FUN!!!

[EmsMom]

Sounds like a great, frugal party! I always like to provide some kind of food beside cake. For small children, vegetables and humus, pasta salad and/or muffins are usually good. I like to get some kind of food into those stomachs before the sugar hits! Also, if there are some adults around, it is good to have something.

[root*children]

Thanks for the food suggestions Emsmom!
And great ideas Tired!
The water ideas wouldn't work for our area (water conservation in high desert area + safety issues), but I think that dinosaur egg hunt is FANTASTIC! DH thought it was great, too! Our woods around our house are so big, that would be a big hit, i bet!
We're a bunch of hippies, so potlucks never seem out of the question. We've even been to several potluck weddings :LOL ! Plus we're about to move, so it'll be asked that noone bring gifts (unless a picture of the family or kids for DS to have )

OH, I grabbed a bunch of cute party favors at a yardsale yesterday for $1 to help fill the pinata!! woo-hoo!

[Ruthla]

Home made pizza:

make the dough ahead of time. Give everybody a circle of dough and a piece of aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray. Have tomato sauce and cheeses on the table. Kids make their own pizzas, its an activity and its a food.

For younger kids, you might want to make the pizzas ahead of time and just serve it. It's a lot cheaper than buying a few pies from the pizzaria

Other food ideas: sandwiches cut into quarters- peanut butter and jelly, cream cheese, maybe tuna salad or egg salad- cheap stuff that you know kids like.

[Lil'M]

How about an art project? One year the kids painted rocks and that was a big hit. You can collect them outside or buy a huge bag of river rocks at a nursery for a few bucks (wash them before the party because they are muddy). Another year I had them paint the back side of Chinet plates because the texture is like canvas. You can also have them decorate white paper lunch bags by coloring or with stickers and they become the goody bags.

[Bethla]

A treasure hunt is fun too. My mom once had a treasure chest she filled with rice or oatmeal (something of texture) and hid little prizes inside and then we were blindfolded and got to feel around in it.

[Victorian]

my dd just had her birthday party here is what we did:

We have "brunch" in the park at 10 in the morning. "light bunch serve" which was lots of cut of fruits with yogurt/honey dip. We had some muffins and of course a homemade white cake smothered in fresh strawberries. Instead of punch we did those little waterbottles that you can get at target.

For activities we were at a park! And I bought large sheets of foam and made fairy wings (it was a fairy themed party). cut each wing and stapled them together with a piece of foam in the middle as a connector. Then I stapled elastic to the back in arm loops. I set out all the wings and glitter glue, feathers, paint and foam stickers for them to decorate their own wings.

For the invite I had printed a free coloring picture of a fairy and said if they brought it back they would get a special surprise. (almost all of them brought it). For the special surprise I print up a certificate for each one of them from *King Oberon" stating that they were a prince/princess of Fairyland and that their fairy name was _____(like orange bloosom or acorn).

They took home their certificates and wings ( no gift bags)

It went really well. There were about 15 5/6 year olds.

[root*children]

Okay, update! There's been a slight change of plans. DS has decided he wants a Pirate party. We've never done a themed party, but I think it'll be fun.
For invites, I racked my brain trying to come up with something pirate-ish, and realized that DS has a gaziliion drawings in his art center - most of which are knights, but alot of pirate ones, too. so we went through and kept his favorites and made the other ones into invites. Cut around the picture and then stapled it to a different color paper that was bigger, and wrote the info on the blank paper. They turned out cute.

We'll do a treasure hunt and still the pinata. I think for the prizes for the treasure hunt we'll have some watermelons to bring back and share with everyone, and also some costume jewelry and some home-made cereal necklaces (fruitloops kind). Pirate's booty-type stuff!

Anything else pirate-ish y'all can think of??

I checked out FamilyFun.com (BTW - a GREAT source for b-day party activities and ideas) but their site was down. I'll have to check again today.

Victorian - your party sounds awesome!!! Sometimes I just long to have girl children!

[Victorian]

that sounds like a great party! Don't forget the eye patches....arrrgh

For food you could do fruit sha-babs (spelled wrong). Someone was telling me about making them and then sticking them into a pinapple bowl so they look like hair - that would be cute.

[TiredX2]

We recently went to a pirate party that was excellent.

The kids all made little parrots to sit on their shoulders w/foamies. Also pirate hats.

They dug for treasure (seriously, the parents burried a box w/chocolate coins & those really cheap necklaces & rings and stuff) which was a blast.

And don't forget the temporary tatoos!

[zoooteacher]

Def! the temporary tatoos, and do try to fit in the gold chocolate coins in there somewhere, for the fun of it!

[jillywilson]

My SIL had a pirate party for my nephew. She had a little wading pool of water with a piece of lumber over it for a "walk the plank" game. She also had a treasure hunt of clues that the kids had to follow to the "treasure" along the lines of "Before Captain Pete sets sail, he's always sure to check the ____ (mail)". Then all the kids ran to the mailbox to find the next clue and so on. They also played Put the Eyepatch on the Pirate (like Pin the Tail on the Donkey). She drew a picture of a pirate on a piece of poster board then gave the kids paper "eyepatches" to put on blindfolded.

[root*children]

Such great ideas! We did get pirate hats from Long John Silvers for the kids. DS isn't old enough to read yet, so I'm thinking of just drawing pictures? But there will be at least a couple kids who can read, so maybe clues would work? hmm...

LOVE the pin the eye-patch on the pirate game!

[PikkuMyy]

Go to the library and look for pirate books or CDs with sea-faring and pirate songs.
Pirate jokes?
You could do face painting to look like pirates/parrots or have tattoos painted on their arms.
You could do a treasure hunt by providing the children with a map (make it look nice and old) and thus not needing writing, just pictures and lines.
Get some huge art paper and have them make a pirate mural.

[MyLittleWonders]

We just went to a pirate party for a 5 year old and the kids had a blast! We dressed like pirates (mascara works well for painting scruffy beards on kids). They walked the plank - a picnic bench and they had to jump off. Their "prize" was a temp tatoo. They had a treasure hunt - since the crowd was younger (pre-k and k aged), it was done with pictures (treasure maps). They bought cheap bead necklaces and clip on earrings for the kids to get in the treasure. And the made the cake look like a pirate ship - I'm guessing the mom used two round cake pans and cut each in half, somehow got them to stand up, frosted them between to stick them together and then frosted all around. She decorated it with a mast, root beer barrel candies ... it was really cute. And everyone ran around saying "arg mate-y" all afternoon!

[root*children]

That cake is the one from the FAmilyFun website. It is really cute. DS wants a skull & crossbones cake, which should be much easier
So, where in the heck do you get temp. tattoos???? Walmart doesn't have them. Our town only has 2 toy stores (or is it only 1 now? hmm..) I guess I'll try them today. If I can't find any, it would be easy enough to make face paints and paint on tattoos! thanks for the ideas!!!!

[~Megan~]

Well, I'm paying less for dd's party this year than I did the last two years. I'm renting the gym she takes gymnastics class at for $80 plus $10 for plates, cups, napkins, silverware, and gifts for the kids. And $2 for the cake mix and frosting that was on sale, plus $1 for the candles.

That's cheaper than the picnics I've done the last two years.

[root*children]

okay, an update! The party was last sunday, and absolutely wonderful!

We did a potluck, and it worked out great! Of course the kids were a bit preoccupied to eat more than pizza and watermelon, but it was wonderful for the mamas!!

The treasure hunt was cute. We made necklaces out of HoneyNut Cheerios and AppleJax (generic brand, of course ), bought 50 cent glow bracelets and has some cheap Walmart bigger toys and Reeses PB cups. These were all put in a laundry basket lined with colorful silks for the treasure chest.

Then we had lunch. Then did the pinata. I made it by doing about 7 layers (one a day, so they could dry). Then painted it, and gave him yarn hair. All the kids (about 12) got 3 turns each before it broke. Was filled with DS's excess stickers, wooden tops/yoyos from a yardsale ($1), some candies, and random party favors that were also from a yardsale ($1). The party favor bags were just white paper lunch sacks.

Then we did cake/ice cream. Homemade cake in shape of skull & cross-bones, and ice-cream sandwiches cut in halves. If I had more time, I would have put skewers with paper on them, into the ice cream sandwiches, to look like pirate ships.

We have a bid field that we said was an ocean, and put 2 huge appliance boxes with one end and one long side cut off. These were pirate ships. We cut holes to stick DH's kayaking paddles through, and had a bathroom stool in the corner of one for a crow's nest. Then they were decorated with streamers. We hung play silks, cloth belts, capes, etc. on the sides for dress-up and I told Clay he could gather sticks for swords if they wanted them. The kids had SO much fun with these!! The last kids that were at the party had fun destroying them after the party was over, too!! :LOL

All our decorations were from yardsales or from our neighborhood's dumpter.

A very frugal and wonderful party! Wish you all could have been there!!!

[kellywhalen]

We had a ton of fun hunting for treasures in a friend's sand box at her birthday party.

If you don't have one, you can always use a plastic storage bin filled with play sand.

Have fun!