Birthday parties do not have to break the bank. And sometimes it’s the simplest, most inexpensive ideas that are the most fun! The important thing to remember, your child isn’t going to know if you spent $30 or $300. They’re just going to remember how much fun they had!
The Cake:
Making your own cake is obviously the most inexpensive route to go. And you don’t have to be a professional cake decorator make it look good! You can bake a basic sheet cake and ice it and then use themed figurines to decorate it. Cars, Toy Story, Disney princesses, any theme is possible with just a few inexpensive toys.
Cupcakes are also a good option for a party for kids. You can find cheap trinkets to decorate each cupcake with that doubles as a favor for each child. The Dollar Tree often has small frisbees, spinning tops and other things in the toy department. I’ve seen Cars, Winnie The Pooh, Diego and Disney princesses and they are often 4-6 to a pack for just $1. Use these to top the cupcakes!
A Dirt Cake is simple enough for anyone to make! A chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Top with crushed oreos and gummie worms!
Shaped-cake pans can be purchased fairly inexpensively at Michael’s if you use the 40% off coupon out of their weekly ad.
Decorations:
Decorations do not have to be elaborate. And the Dollar Tree is a good place for inexpensive cups, plates, napkins, balloons, streamers, and other decorations.
You can also use what you already have at home for decorations. Use your daughter’s princess dolls or your son’s trucks as table decorations that fit in with your theme.
Activities:
A table with some coloring sheets and crayons is often all you need to entertain the kids. Printable coloring sheets are found at most children’s website. Look up your child’s favorite show and you should be able to find coloring sheets to fit your theme.
Allowing each child to decorate their own cupcake or cookie is another activity!
Blowing bubbles, sidewalk chalk and a sprinkler are other good activities! And just giving them time for unstructured play and a nice place to play with plenty of items (balls, riding toys, trucks) that you probably already have is the best idea. Depending on the age group of the attendees, games like Mother May I and Simon Says are always fun.
Food:
Scheduling the party between meal times will save you on food costs. Mid-morning or afternoon parties are good. If you must serve lunch, keep it simple. Hot dogs, chips/goldfish crackers and a fruit (grapes, fruit cocktail or diced peaches) is a good lunch for the under 10 crowd. :)
Party Favors:
If you feel you must give out party favors – hit up the Dollar Tree!
You can use Dum-Dum suckers or Blow Pops as balloon weights that will also double as party favors. Each child can have a balloon and sucker when they go home!
I use magazines like Oriental Trading or Rhode Island Novelty for items to put in goody bags. Also- you can save a lot by combining the theme of your party and the games. For ex) have a cooking party and let the kids decorate their own homemade pizza and cupcakes. It saves on money (because it’s handmade) and the decorating is fun and takes up time! Plus- if you can find them on sale- chef hats and aprons are WAY more fun than a goody bag!
You can also make your own cake-even without a cake pan! My son wanted a Perry the Platypus cake for his 4th birthday. I found a pan online- but was not going to pay $13-$17 for just the pan. So, I baked 2 cakes, cut them and pieced them together. With a little star-tipping and decorating- perry came alive!
Between all of the kiddos in my extended family the mom’s often trade decorations such as banners and balloon holders etc. We also offer to make some sort of food item for each other. It makes the party less expensive and less stressful!
My son recently turned 12 and loves pokemon cards. We took a basically plain cake except for Happy Birthday at the bottom, put waxed paper on the top part, and stuck on some pokemon cards in card sleeves. He loved it and the cards and sleeves doubled as part of his gift!
Having my daughter’s first birthday in less than 2 months. Last year just before she was born, Party City put all their pooh bear decorations on clearance so I bought those then. They were all flat and stored nice in the side of the pantry. I’ve spent the last 6 months buying favor bag goodies for the cousins when the Target dollar section goes on clearance and will add some of the recent gum packs I’ve gotten for cheap in the bags of the bigger kids as well as crayons I got last back-to-school shopping season. We’ve gotten all the snack food through deals over the past 2-3 months, and have soda left from her Christening/Baptism (I grossly overestimated my need at that party!!). I got the oscar Meyer hot dogs at Save-a-Lot with the $1/2 coupon for 50c a pack for the kids, and some sausage reduced at Save-a-Lot (24 links for $6 dollars!!) frozen in my freezer. I just need the cake, which my sister is making (and our grocery store Tops give a 1/8 sheet cake for the baby’s 1st with a birth certificate free for her to mash!!), a package of Sahlen’s Hot dogs for the adults, and some “adult drinks” and we are all set!!
Thanks for the great ideas. All of the birthday’s in my family fall between May and September. (That’s 9 birthday’s in 4 months.) So we have found a lot of creative ideas to keep the price down.
We just had a Super Hero birthday party and I made all of the decor out of free online printables and comic books.
Next month we are combining 2 of our kids birthday parties into one party. We found an awesome package that includes everything from transportation (a Hummer stretch Limo that seats 18), bowling, pizza, balloons and cake for $19 per person. I was shocked at how great of a deal it was and I love that I won’t have any mess to clean up.
I love this site for creative party ideas: http://onecharmingparty.com
Family.com (not Family Fun) has a bunch of Disney Shrink Art printables. We bought the paper online and printed two sheets of characters and used them as cupcake toppers! Kids and adults both loved them and the kids had charms to take home after. Really fun!
Another party favor idea- hit the holiday (Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc) section after things have been clearanced 75-90%. After Easter I got bubble sets for my son’s preschool end of year party for 10cents! Plus I’ve been able to find cute stocking/basket stuffers that way. You can also use these items for the shoeboxes at Christmas.
We just had my 7-year-old’s birthday party. I told the kids we weren’t having big expensive parties this year b/c we’re saving for WDW. My son said he wanted an Alabama football theme for his party. So I made a pull-apart cake shaped like a football and we found a football shaped piñata at Hobby Lobby (got it for less than $8 after the 40% coupon). He loves arts & crafts so we did some inexpensive paint activities (all of which came from the Family Fun magazines). We had the party at 2:00 so all we needed were chips cake & ice cream. Because it’s summer I found great deals on chips & ice cream and Publix just happen to put their generic 2 liter sodas on sale for 50 cents right before the party.
We just did a Thomas the Train party at Travel Town in Los Angeles. We had to bring cold foods as no flames were allowed. I used the chafing pans that are for the hot water and filled them and froze them to make big ice slabs. I then made sandwiches and wrapped each one up to keep clean, and together. We drove the 100 miles with all the foods and such. We went to Ikea and got their trains and a floor mat for cars to put in the grass for the kids to play with. We had bags of chips and 6 kinds of fruit cut and cleaned. Capri Suns were frozen to use as ice to keep food cold for that 100 mile car ride. The party started at 11 and ended at 3. We were there from 10 to 5 with most of the guest. Amazing how everyone had a wonderful time and just were amazed at all the food and how it was cold and easy to eat. Clean up was very simple too
Family Fun Magazine has lots of ideas and their website helps you plan great home parties. You can use their cake finder to come up with the perfect cake and get full directions, too.
Very good reminder! :) Sometimes I forget all the places I see good ideas. :)
I always hit up the factory card outlet clerance section. I once was able to score both a Diego and Backyaragians Wilton cake pan for 75 cents each! They had all thier clerance on sale for 75 cents. I alo scored a bunch of party stuff to go along with it. I couldn’t find a whole bunch of one theme but had my wonderful (and smart) son with me and he told me why not do a Nick Jr theme mom? DUH!! So we go a bunch of different Nick Jr favors, decorations, inviations, the cake pans, icing coloring for the cakes, and some other goodies to put away for other paties. I think I scored well over $200 of stuff for like $20. I was really happy with my shopping that day!!