Budget birthday party ideas

[TinknBellesMom]

It's my Dd5's birthday in a few weeks and $$ is pretty tight. So, we're going to do a home party and I need some type of activity to do. I'm usually pretty good with coming up with something, but nothing is really striking Dd's fancy. So any ideas? Oh and she wants both boys and girls there.

 

[zoemurr]

www.birthdaypartyideas.com
it's one of my favorite sites. I have even won prizes a few times for my ideas.

At 5 we had a cooking party. We have also had an art theme, around the world, carnival, and our last one was "Minute to Win It". That was a lot of fun.

Good luck!

 

[luckey-lasvegas]

http://www.orientaltrading.com/party-themes-and-events-a1-388560+79-1-0.fltr

Check out oriental trading they have great sets that can include crafts.

 

[HeatherC]

My kids loved home parties. Some things we did were...

Pass The Present
Get different prizes from the Dollar Store. Wrap them...one for however many kids. Then kids sit in circle andyou start the musc and they pass one present around until you stop the music. Kid holding it then moves out of the circle with the present. Repeat until every kids gets a present and then they open at the same time.

Blow up helium balloons and tie strings on them. Kids go crazy and have a blast and get to take a balloon home. Play balloon games like make teams of two. Tie balloon around ankle of one team member. Other teammate has to stomp on balloon to pop. see how long it takes them to pop.
First team to pop it wins small prize.

Balloon races
Mummy Wrap..Split kids into two teams. Put one from each team in a chair. Each team has a roll of toilet paper they must wrap the person in the chair with. Each kids gets to do one wrap around the person and pass the roll of toilet paper. First team to finish wrapping person completely wins.

Make cupcakes and let them decorate their own with little candies, etc..

Have them decorate their own goody bags. Buy plain lunch bags and get some of those foam stickers and put out some markers.

Musical Chairs
Hula Hoop or Limbo Contest

Hope this helps! Have a great time!

 

[Deffenm]

My kids pick a theme and I go from there. We have had a dog themed party. I got these cute dog houses with stuffed dogs already in them at Michaels and the kids painted them. I bought a few each week using 40% off coupons and it only cost about $2.00 per dog house. We did a pirate/princess party. I bought cheap items at Dollar tree like tatoos, crowns, pirate eye patch, etc.. The kids then dressed up either like a pirate or princess and we did a treasure hunt around the house.

My kids love coming up with challening topics to see if I can pull it off. We have had a bug, reptile, Indiana Jones, Lego, and olympic games. I think it is easier to have a theme and then search on the internet for ideas. I usually only spend around $100 for everything including games, prizes, decorations, goodie bags, cake and snacks. Of course my kids favorite thing was when we created a "cave" out of several card board boxes and we timed them to see who could crawl through the cave the fatest (part of Indiana Jones themed party). Who knew card board boxes would be such a huge hit.

 

[TinknBellesMom]

Great ideas! Thanks. Dd is thinking so many different ideas now, I need to rein her in. So far she wants a chef/scavenger hunt/craft/mario cart party.

 

[MSSANDRA]

WE attended a great party this week-end. I know it was a major budget party BUT the others did not and everyone loved it! They had it at 9:30 and at our local park. Very few people there and they grabbed a unused shelter for free but were prepared to just used some random tables. Kids played for about 45 minutes on the playground, they then served cake and juice boxes with soda for adults, had VERY simple treat bags done with paper bags, opened gifts and the kids played a little longer and everyone went on their way. SOOO easy, simple and the rest of the day was open for whatever else people needed to do. The cake was bought but could have used a cake mix and saved even more. Had about a dozen kids and most parents stayed.


In contrast we attended a party last week-end where they had over 80 people. It was at a large animal park and they did wagon rides and grilled for everyone. We were there 3 hours and left before they even ate or opened gifts. DS mentioned his gift to his friend at school that monday and he had no clue about the gift. The party cost close to a 1000.00.

Guess which one DS had more fun at??

Simple is fine.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

My friend had a non-sleep-over pajama party when her DD turned 5 (there were a few boys there also). It was in the morning and the kids came in their pj's- she had out all kinds of cereal (store brand), little muffins (from bj's) and juice; and muffins and coffee for the moms. So it was basically like the morning after a sleep-over party...

After breakfast she had games- pillow-sack races, musical chairs (but sitting on pillows to keep with the sleep-over theme) and another game similar to hot potato (a few coloring books from dollar tree- just what HeatherC said). We then ended with presents & cake and the kids had a blast!

 

[MaggieBailey]

I think I saw someone mention a cooking party - those are fun and can be inexpensive! They could make pizza - on pitas or with "real" crust, and put their own toppings on it.... And do cupcake decorating - if you make several flavors of cupcakes in advance, then mix up different colors/flavors of frosting - put in zip bags and snip off the end for them to squirt and decorate, plus different kinds of sprinkles.... Have fun!!

 

[luckey-lasvegas]

http://familyfun.go.com/parties/

This has always been a world of help for me too!

 

[Zoemakes5]

We've done "make over" parties where the girls use crazy hair stuff and nail stuff and go crazy. Overall pretty inexpensive.
We've done pirate themed scavenger hunt at the park and everyone had a good time.
I did a pretty cheap Jack Skellington party last year for DD. I made my own round cakes and cupcakes, used construction paper to decorate with Jacks, made all sorts of Jack shaped and decorated foods, including white chocolate dipped oreos as Jack lolipops. I used black and white cheap paper and plastic products. Since I did it myself, ended up being really cheap.

 

[monorailsilver]

I have had the kids paint flower pots & then plant a flower & that was their 'goody bag'.

I have made/painted on cardboard a pin the X on the X (mine was a cherry on the ice cream.

A scavenger hunt but divide it into a few teams but each team has different clues to find the treasure (candy). Or a scavenger hunt to find all the items.

A paint/fabric marker your own t-shirt (just put cardboard in the middle of the shirt.

Bob for apples but instead of that because it is germs in the water, hang donuts from a string & have them eat the donuts (or a cookie).

Three leg race, wheel barrow race.

Put something in an ice cube, a prizee (may be too cold for this) & give one to each kid & have them be the first to melt it.

Face painting.

 

[KAPTink]

One of our most successful girl/boy elementary age parties was a Lego theme. I baked a sheet cake and topped with 6 cupcakes and frosted to look like a Lego. I just used solid primary colored paper goods to decorate and serve. We had three different games using my son's collection of Legos that we already had on hand...Best thing built in 2 minutes, then another one where each child worked with a partner for a while and then voted on 'most creative', most colorful, etc...the final one was a themed build. I gave kids a theme (like school or beach) and they had to build something related to the theme. Super easy.

 

[TinknBellesMom]

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! Dd would like a scavenger hunt party at our local park. Boy that is a great idea! All the benefits of an out of the house party (no cleaning!) none of the cost.

These were all such great ideas that I'm filing them all later for other birthday parties. Of course as I was reading this post to my Dd's, Dd8 decided that she wanted a "not quite" sleep over party for her birthday and they both decided we should have a lego party for Ds for his 2nd birthday. Gotta love that my kids are planners like me.

The party cost close to a 1000.00.

Wow!

Thanks so much for your help everyone!