I've only thrown 6 parties in my adult life. The first one was my wedding, then I did my sister-in-laws baby shower and the last 4 have been my son's birthday parties. I might eventually share my wedding party photos, and I don't have photos of the baby shower, but I wanted to really focus on kids parties because I found that you can still do fun stuff for kids and not spend a bunch of money.

 

What's great about kids and I think people might forget, is that they are happy with stuff that we might have forgotten about or now overlook. Kids are learning new things everyday and even though we know about all kind of things, kids don't and thus, it's easy to entertain them without spending a bunch of money.

 

Case in point, I worried that kids at Oliver's birthday parties would be bored that we didn't have a bounce house, clowns, puppeteer, face painting, etc... but every year since his first birthday the kids have had a blast, doing old fashion things like crafts, games, or just playing with toys they don't have at home. All kids love toys and even if they aren't that exciting anymore to your kid, they are new and exciting to your kids friends and then your kid will be loving his stuff again (if for a little while at least.)

 

I say take advantage of this awesome attitude that kids have and go simple and don't spend money on extra stuff like the above listed. The first birthday party my son didn't have any friends his age come so his two cousins might have been bored a bit because I didn't bring any toys, but they did have a craft that they did and they enjoyed that and the party was pretty fast paced because a one year old doesn't really have the patience to do a bunch of stuff (at least that's how my son was.) For Oliver's 2nd birthday, we were lucky because his birthday is in January so he had a bunch of brand new toys so we just brought those to the party site and added 6 cardboard boxes ($1.50 each or free if you can find big ones) and the kids had a blast, not one kid was bored and I didn't have to pay for entertainment.  For his 3rd birthday I did pretty much the same thing, but kicked it up a notch with games because the kids were getting older so we did parachute games, I made bean bags for a tossing game, set up race car ramps and electric tracks (which were Christmas presents) and had a craft and they were again happy as clams. For his 4th birthday, he had the party at a park and it was drizzly and I was worried because I was hoping that the entertainment would be the kids playing on the play structure and with it raining I thought everyone would be bored. But I was wrong. I brought a 6 car race track that I got on clearance after Christmas ($20) and filled a blow-up skeleton coffin (that was supposed to hold drinks but I changed because of the rain $8) with sand and had a dinosaur and bone dig. I also brought our stomp rocket and a bucket of Oliver's Lego's and the kids had a blast, no one was bored and because it was drizzly and not full out rain, they still played on the play structure, but the hit of the party was the stomp rocket ($10, but free to us because it was a gift from 2 years ago) the bucket of Oliver's Lego's and the dinosaur/bone dig.

 

I guess my point is, you can have fun parties for kids and not spend a bunch of money and they still have fun. I know that this won't last so I'm taking advantage of it while I can. I also know it's easier to rent a party place and let them take care of all the arrangements, I don't think there is anything wrong with that, but for people like me, I want people to know how to throw a cool party and not worry about expenses.

 

I was able to save money on party favors and decorations because I was willing to make a bunch of the stuff that I needed, but I know people don't have the time or patience or creativity, but that's what the Internet is for, get ideas that way or go to Etsy, there are lots of people out there who will do it for you and for not a lot of cost. That's where I found a lot of the graphics I needed for invites and custom stickers. For Oliver's 1st birthday I paid a flat fee of $10 for a customizable sock monkey template and I used it for invites, stickers (I bought sticker paper at Wal-Mart for $4) and was able to decorate the party hats, blowers, and party favors. Take advantage of the dollar or 99 cent stores and buy the foundations of stuff there but customize them your own way. I do that with party hats, blowers, plates, napkins, cups, balloons, everything. If you can't alter how they look you can at least use them as templates to make your own thing. I bought a set of 8 party hats from the dollar store used one for the template and used the elastic from all of them for the hats I made. I needed 16 hats so I paid $2 and got the templates and elastic I needed. (I know I probably could have gotten it cheaper if I just bought elastic at the fabric store, but I had to pay $1 anyway for the hat to make a template. I know also that I probably could have gotten the template for free on the Internet, but for me it's easier to just pay the dollar and not worry about the research involved.)

 

I learned from doing my wedding to look outside the box of what is offered on party websites. For my wedding I wanted Chinese take-out containers for my candy bar I set up (thank you Martha Stewart for the idea) but when I looked on wedding websites (this was 10 years ago keep in mind) they wanted $10 for 5 boxes, so I thought, I just want simple boxes and I will decorate them myself, so I went to a restaurant supply store got 50 boxes for $10 bought a stamp that I liked, stamped all the boxes and added a custom ribbon with our wedding info (I can't remember the price of that, but I got a whole roll and used it on a bunch of stuff so the cost wasn't very much in the end.) and they were really cool and it cost me way less then what I found on wedding websites.

 

My point is, get ideas from wedding or birthday sites, but try and figure out how you can do it yourself using other resources. The candy bar idea I got from Martha Stewart Living magazine and she had beautiful glass containers that didn't have prices, but I can guess they were pretty expensive, but I was able to reproduce the look for way cheaper by looking for containers on clearance, at Ikea, or outlets so mine looked neat but didn't cost much. I also found metal scoops from a restaurant supply store for cheap and added my own ribbon and they were nice and didn't cost much and I still use them to this day. In fact the containers and scoops I used for my wedding still get used by myself and my sister-in-law for birthday parties, so I could have spent more because the investment has paid off.

 

I know that was a ramble of info, but hopefully I got across that you can still have nice parties and not pay a lot to do it.

Oliver's 1st Birthday, Sock Monkey Theme, January 2010

Looking back at pictures makes me realize that I liked Oliver's first birthday party the best because I love the theme and colors involved. My husband's coworkers threw us a sock monkey themed baby shower and I thought it was really cute, so that was the inspiration for this party.

 

Since it was for his first birthday, the party was really for the adults, so there wasn't really any games or toys to play with. This was the cake display, I made the cake and the cupcakes and I really liked how simple they were. I got personalized stickers made that had sock monkey's on them and Oliver's name so I used them throughout the party. I also used a primary color and dots theme so it made it easy for decorating and finding party ware.

This is a close up of the mini cupcakes I made. I liked my cupcake display because I was able to decorate the base with the personalized stickers, but I found out later that people thought it looked cheapy. I still like it though because it was personalized! I made plain vanilla cupcakes with white frosting that I used food coloring to change into yellow, red, blue and green. I also covered some with colorful sprinkles so I liked the variety.

I had to make the party hats, blowers, and chocolate party favors for this party also. I didn't hand make the hats like I did for the skeleton party because I was able to find plain colorful hats that I added stickers to. I did have to hand make the party tiaras, but used the headband part from dollar store ones. The blowers were made

Close up of the blowers.

Close up of the chocolate bars covered in paper. I used scalloped hole punch that was 2.5 inches in diameter so that I could give the sticker more design. That hold puncher was the best investment because I've used it many time since for different projects. It makes tags look nicer.

I used the hole punch to make the labels for the hats along with the custom stickers. I bought dollar store tiaras and used the form as a template for the top and used the headbands for the ones I made.

This is were Oliver sat to eat his first birthday cake and make a mess. I painted this table and chair set for him and I have painted others for family and friends.

 Here is the cake I made for him to dig into and make a mess. I like it because its a vanilla cake with white frosting, very simple, but I then rolled the sides with sprinkles and it makes it really festive and matched the mini cupcakes. I made the little label picks using the hold punch and custom stickers.

I used the sock monkey "jack in the box" from his baby shower and found the cool year "1" plates at Target and I was happy with them because they matched the color theme so they were perfect.

 My aunt made these really cute caterpillar sandwiches that people enjoyed. Oliver doesn't eat sandwiches, but they were a hit with the guests. Notice the table cloth, it too was from Target, I couldn't find a more perfect set of party ware, I was really lucky.

The balloon didn't really match the color theme but when I went to get balloons they ran out of red, yellow, blue, and green. I think this still looks cool and I don't think anyone noticed.

Oliver's 2nd Birthday; Thomas the Train theme January 2011

The theme for Oliver's 2nd birthday was Thomas the train, but instead of getting a bunch of stuff with Thomas images on it, I used the Thomas color's of light blue, red and white. That way it gave me more freedom with the decorations and cake and it was also hard to find offical Thomas partyware that wasn't super expensive.

 

 

My sister-in-law has one of the paper cutter machines (sorry I can't remember the name...cutterbee?...something like that.) So I gave her the paper I wanted to use to make the birthday banner and then put it together. I really liked it because I was able to find blue Thomas paper at the scrapbook store so I could add it to the banner in places.

You can't really tell by this photo, but the party favors were "bindles" of fun train stuff, wrapped up in red and blue bandannas. I made tags for each of them with the kids name on them and used a plain train picture that was in the Thomas color scheme.

I bought cups in the Thomas blue color and red and on the red ones I used sticker paper to customize them with "Oliver's 2nd birthday" I'm upset that I didn't do close up shots, it wasn't until just recently that I thought I should document the party stuff more close up! (Although I did a pretty good job of it for his 1st birthday, I guess I'm just a dope!)

You can't really see the pinwheels, but they are red and blue and I got custom labels made that said "Oliver's turning two" to put on the front. I gave them as party favors and also decorated with them, but again, you can't tell because I don't have a close-up shot!

I'm pretty proud of the cakes I made, but they are pretty bad if you know anything about making and decorating cakes, but because I don't, I think they turned out pretty fun. I made a gluten-free cake for one of the box cars because he had a friend how was gluten sensitive and this was a good way to do it because I made 4 seperate cakes anyway. Plus the friend didn't feel excluded from cake and there wasn't anything that made it seem out of place so it wasn't a big ordeal.

This is the engine and it's pretty funny looking, I got the decorating idea from the "Parenting" website but mine didn't turn out as nice looking as theirs, but again, I'm proud of it because I'm not a professional and Oliver was excited about it and that's all that matters.

The birthday banners again, I thought they were really pretty so I took a bunch of pictures I guess!

 This was what the labels, invite, and stickers looked like, they were generic trains, but in Thomas color's and I was happy about that, I liked it better then offical Thomas stuff.

One of the activities for the party was a bunch of boxes that I got at Home Depot and we lined them up as a train with door cut out and the kids had a blast! They decorated them and climbed around and through them and it entertained them or a long time. I also brought all of Oliver's Thomas trains and track to the party and put them on the ground on a rug and they enjoyed playing with those. I also had a puppet making craft that was fun and easy for 2 year olds.

Again the banners, I know I'm obsessed! This one had Oliver's name on it, so it was extra cool.

Oliver's 3rd birthday "Cars" theme January 2012

The most depressing thing I discovered while going through birthday party pictures is that I have zero good photos of Oliver's 3rd birthday. They don't really show how fun the party was and they are blurry! I am posting them because I don't want to have a gap in parties, but I'm sad that they are so few and bad. (By the way, my posts are about the party set-up and decorations only, I didn't want to show the kids and the people at the party because I don't have the parents permission and I don't really want Oliver in the pictures either. I'm doing this blog to give people ideas for parties because when I was looking into ideas I could not find very many that I could afford or do or liked.) Also I am not an expert, nor do I think my parties are original or super awesome but hopefully they will spark inspiration in people like some of the post's I've found on the Internet.

 

 

 

Favor bags that I found during the summer time on clearance for .10 cents each, I was very lucky and excited! I found them at Target and luckily Oliver was really into the movie Cars so I was pretty sure it was safe to buy the bags on clearance for his birthday. Also, they were .10 cents each so if he hated the idea by the time his birthday happened, I wasn't out much money. I bought a dozen.

 

 We held the party in my aunts super cool carport/garage. It has hardwood ceilings and walls and brick floor. It's really a cool setting that reminds me of a lodge or something. We had Oliver's 1st through 3rd birthday at her house and two in the carport and it was a hit. The kids could play in the driveway and if it rained it was undercover. This is a photo of a geotrax racecar set Oliver got for Christmas that the kids had fun playing with.

I'm lucky that Oliver's birthday is in January because there are tons of fun stuff that go on sale after Christmas and I can get a really good price on things. This Towmater box that you can color was only $6 on clearance and was a huge hit. The kids played inside of it and decorated the outside.

We had differnt stations around the driveway area. There was a beanbag toss that I made beanbags for (no photographic evidence!) I had a spot that we did parachute games, a race track, an geotrax racetrack, the TowMater project, plus we decorated V.W. Bug cars with stickers. (Again, no photos, so sad!!)

I made stations throughout the driveway area. I sectioned them off with black and white checkered flags and even made a line of the flags to the entance to the party. I have no photographic evidence of this however! I wanted a Cars sort of theme, but not totally from the movie "Cars" but kinda cars in general, that way I could use really fun checkered flags for decorations, banners, and table skirts. Also the cakes I made were generic cars because I wanted to make them myself and I'm not skilled enough to make them look like the movie, this way I could get away with it.

Here is a long shot of the car cakes I made. I bought a cake mold that shaped the cake into cars, and then I decorated them. The mini cupcakes were made to make up for the fact that the car cakes only fed about 2 people each! I found "Cars" juice boxes, that was pretty cool.

A close up shot of the car cakes.

I used the checkered flag theme for decorating, it was bascially the checkered flag for most everything but red for table cloths and I used "Cars" plates, cups, and napkins.

 

This was the cake that Oliver ate and blew his candles out on, since it was the number 3 and that was his age. I made it red to be kinda Lighting McQueen-ish.

 

I put little bowls of snacks at the kids grabbing level so they could graze, as kids do. I made sure they were pretty much healthy choices so that parents wouldn't be mad if the kids came up and chose their own treats.

This shot was at the beginning of set up but it shows the checkered flag table skirt.

When I set up a party, I like the idea of a theme but I don't really like a literal one. For instance, the party was a "Cars" theme but I didn't like the idea of buying "Cars" tablecloth's, ballons, signs, a professional decorated "Cars" cake. I'm not saying I didn't have actual "Cars" stuff, but I tried not to blanket the whole party with it which would have been possible because there was a lot of "Cars" partyware available and I could have done everything with the character's from the movie. I think when you don't use everything provided by a theme it makes it more interesting and fun.

Oliver's 4th Birthday; Skeleton theme, January 2013

I found this stamp at store and went crazy stamping.

I stamped the drink cups, both black and white

The theme was skeleton, but I tried to use only black and white decorations.

Stamped plates, both round and square ( not pictured)

Stamped party favor bags.

I had to make my own skull blowers, so I bought dollar store blowers as the base and added a skull.

Stamped napkins in black

 Stamped napkins in white plus had white napkins in dessert sized that were striped and polka dotted.

 Had to make skeleton party hats, I used a dollar store party hat as the template and then stamped black paper with the skeleton's. I would have made white one's also but Oliver wanted white skeletons.

Used a template I found on pinterest and made a hanging skeleton. I was going to make a "pin the arm or bone on the skeleton" game but my husband had a better idea of pin the "underpants, glasses, mustache, etc... to the skeleton" game.

 I did "pin the heart"

"Pin the mustache"

 "Pin the underwear"

 "Pin the glasses"

 This is with everything pinned to the skeleton. The ideas were endless, but I got tired of making all the pieces so we stopped at what we have here, but I also thought a bowtie, necktie, hat, pocket watch, wrist watch, necklace, and hair style would be fun too.

 Oh, Oliver wanted "pin on the socks"

 I couldn't find a skeleton birthday sign so I bought a generic one and added skulls.

The party was a the park on a rainy day so all the decorations didn't get put up because they were paper and got ruined, but I think it turned out okay.

I made the cupcakes but found the cool skeleton picks online.

The final look for the goodie bags, I could not easily find black or white curling ribbon so I just used red, I figured it matched the red part of the skull blowers.

 I did not make the cake, I got it at Vons. It was supposed to be an "Over 40" cake but I asked them to add more bones, and take the grim reaper off. I added the worms and the gummy skeleton to make it more festive and kid like.

I wanted to make a record of what I did for Oliver's birthday parties through the years. I am going to go backwards, however, since I didn't get the idea until his 4th birthday because the theme was Skeleton and I could not find much online to help with a skeleton birthday party theme since it wasn't Halloween time. (Oliver has a January birthday.)