Best of Kid's Party Ideas
Source of Recipe
Linda Larsen
How to Save Money on a Kid's Party
Most parents have been there. Your child's birthday is fast approaching and your finances are a little low. You want your child to have a wonderful birthday but you just can't afford to drop several hundred dollars on an elaborate party this year. Here are some ways to be frugal when planning your kid's party, according to the experts.
Don't assume the cheapest place to have a party is at your house. Once you buy the decorations, food and cake it might have been more cost-effective to buy a package birthday deal that includes all these things in a place like a bowling alley or Chuck E. Cheese.
If you are having the party at your house, you don't have to hire expensive entertainment. Ask around and do some research. The stay-at-home mother next door might moonlight as a clown or magician. Or perhaps a relative wouldn't mind putting on a puppet show. Or perhaps your brother or cousin is a firefighter and can arrange a free tour of a fire truck as entertainment. Try to think out of the box!
Most places famous for hosting a kid's party are really busy on weekends and the rates tend to be higher as well. Think about planning a party after school during the week. It might be cheaper than a weekend event. Do some price comparisons before booking.
If your party is at another place, ask if you can bring your own food. It's almost always cheaper to, for example, make your own birthday cake and bring it rather than pay for one that's made by a party place or local bakery
Ideas for Three of the Most Popular Children's Party Themes
Birthday parties for children are getting more elaborate every year. If you're planning a children's birthday party and want to hit a home run with the theme you choose, check out the following three most popular children's party themes:
Pirate party - there are many party supply companies that offer kits for parties that include treasure maps, eye patches and other pirate-like items. At craft stores, you can purchase faux cold coins and gems for decoration. Kid's party invitations for this theme can look like old treasure maps. Arrange a treasure hunt for the kids at your house, have them play pin the patch on the pirate and play pirate music (offered by The Wiggles and other kid-friendly experts). Fill goody bags with pirate booty such as chocolate-filled gold coins, eye patches, gems and treasure maps.
Hawaiian Luau: decorate your house or yard with fake palm trees and greenery. Offer grass skirts to the girls and pin paper palm trees to the boys to give them an instant Hawaiian shirt. Play Hawaiian or island music. Have a hula hoop and limbo contest. Serve root beer floats, virgin pina coladas and watermelon Kool-Aid as well as chopped strawberries, pineapples and coconut. Goody bags can include mini flip flop notepads, highlighters, faux flowers and goldfish key chains.
Prince/Princess Party: decorate with purple, blue and yellow streamers, create or buy shield and castle images, give the girls costume jewelry and the boys fancy-looking gold rope belts and have the children make their own crowns and treasure chests. Play Renaissance music, plan a treasure hunt using inexpensive items with fun names such as "the jester's ball" (a rubber ball from a coin machine) and "unicorn horns" (crayons). Goody bags can include some of the same type of items as well as a magic wand and party candy such as chocolate-filled gold coin candy and "dragon eggs" (plastic eggs filled with candy)
Inexpensive Toys That Are Great For Goody Bags
If you are looking for something other than party candy to stuff into the goody bags at your children's party, there are plenty of small inexpensive toys on the market that kids love. Whether you are browsing through a bricks-and-mortar store such as a dollar store or an online party supplies store, look for such goody bag gems as wooden pick up sticks, character pop-ups, laser tops, spinning tops, bendable animals and other figurines, goofy teeth, stickers, play money, silly straws, fun plastic sunglasses in different shapes, mini jars of bubbles, yo-yos, costume jewelry and tiny water guns. You can find many of these items in a local dollar store as well. These are all treats your small children and his/her friends will enjoy playing with. And, best of all, providing your child's friends with goodies won't break your bank!
Themed Parties for Kids Using Candy
Kids love parties. And kids love candy. Put the two together and you can do a themed event that will make your children and his/her friends melt in your hands.
Check out children's party websites for ideas. Using the party candy colors as inspiration for a theme, it's possible to do any type of candy as a party theme. For example, a Hershey's Kiss party, Gummy Fish party or an M&M party.
Let's take one idea and run with it to give you some inspiration. Here are some guidelines for an M&M party :
Invitations: use a compass to make round invitations out of construction paper in the primary M&M colors (red, brown, green, yellow). Cut out two circles of paper, tie together with a ribbon on the side. On the front, write M&M. On the inside, make lines and write the pertinent information.
Decorations: you can keep it simple by getting a bunch of helium balloons in the primary M&M colors. Have your children help you make paper M&M candies to hang on the wall, door, table. Put out candy dishes with M&M candies in them.
Cake: bake yourself or have a bakery design an M&M cake for your child. Or opt for cupcakes instead, sprinkled with M&M's on top. Each child can have his or her own cupcake.
Games: fill a jar with M&M's (counting them as you do)and have children guess how many are in there. Pin the "M" on the M&M. This works like pin the tail on the donkey - just have a large cardboard circle (the M&M) and blindfold children and have them try to put a letter "M" in the center of the circle. Or hide plastic eggs filled with M&M's and have children hunt for them.
Party favors: send children home with a goody bag full of, what else, M&M's.
Choosing Kids Party Themes
Don´t even think of choosing a kids party theme for your child – unless they are just too young. Cartoon characters and such are their lives. They are the professionals. They know what they like. All you need to do is figure out the details.
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