Birthday Party on a Budget

I'll admit that I am usually one of those moms who reserves some place like a gym, bouncy house facility, or arcade for a birthday party where everyone does the work and I sit back and relax. However this year that just wasn't in the budget.

First, instead of inviting the whole class, we just invited our cub scout den and and 2 other special friends. Rather than buying invitations, we used Evite. The theme was cooking.

I found these aprons on sale and borrowed the fabric markers from a friend. As each boy arrived, he could start working on his apron while waiting for the rest. Yellow was for the birthday boy, his favorite color.

Once the aprons were made, we started on the pizzas. I bought generic of everything I could. Each child received a small round pizza dough (premade) on a piece of tin foil with his name on it. The toppings included, mini pepperoni, sausage, black olives, green pepper, and pineapple. No one touched the last two. I bought four of these squeeze bottles for the sauce. They worked great at first but then the spices clogged them. You might want to consider cutting the holes a little bigger.

 
Not all of the pizzas fit into the oven at once. While the first round was baking we made fruit kabobs. I had no idea what a big hit this would be. They loved that I gave them sharp pointy sticks and were so excited to eat the fruit, they couldn't even wait for the pizza. I put out melon, grapes, bananas, blue berries, strawberries, watermelon and kiwi.

 
The pizzas were still baking, so we left the table to play "Feed the Snowman". I cleaned out a spaghetti sauce jar and made a snowman using Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons Cricut cartridge. I set up two tv tables in the middle of the family room about five feet apart, a bowl of mini marshmallows on one and the snowman jar on the other. Each boy got one minute to see how many "snowballs" he could feed to the snowman by using only the suction of a straw.

The boys really enjoyed this game, especially counting down the last 10 second aloud. When everyone had a turn, we went back to the table to eat. I made skull and crossbones ice cubes with a mold I had and each boy got a Koolaid Fizz drop to make his drink. I put any left over pizza in a Ziplock bag to take home.

After lunch, I had J go to the fridge to get the whipped cream for the sundaes. Attached to the whip cream he found a clue leading to the rest of the sundae toppings. I made all the clue cards look like something food related, again using the Cheerful Seasons Cricut cartridge and also the Once Upon a Princess Cricut cartridge. I used Stickles to accent them. Once made, my husband took them to work to be laminated .  I printed out clues such as :

    The dog is hungry

      It's time to eat

Open the lid

       And take a peek.   

I also put a magnet on the back (which I already had in my craft supplies) so the boys could take one home as a favor, with their aprons and pizza.

 
 

The treasure filled with sundae toppings was hidden in the dryer. This was definitely the highlight of the party, the boys running through the house screaming and laughing. After making their own sundaes, J got to open his presents and two hours had passed. I did have one more game planned for the last half hour but the boys were done with structured activities.  They were allowed to play up in J's room until the parents arrived.

All in all, I think I spent around $70 for everything. This was a lot cheaper than the $250 quoted for the bouncy house party which did not include cake or favors. I also had enough left over to make pizza casserole and fruit salad for dinner the next night.

Comments

[Christi B.]

Very cute ideas!!!

[Laurie]

Becky,
How very cool!! I love it what fun..you are a way better mama then I have been in recent years..the more kidos the less I have done. Poor A is waiting till she turns 10(next year) the famous year when my kids are allowed to have their first "friend " party!! You have now inspired me with ideas :o)

[caryn]

Great ideas! It's fun to come up with different themes and activities. You'll be addicted now! I remember Layne's cowboy/Western theme party had a few issues though: pouring rain so we had to ride the pony in the garage/basement and in my enthusiasm to have food that went along with the theme I realized that I had created a "Choking Hazards" theme instead.