Mistress's Birthday on a Budget

I suppose that you've been kept in suspense long enough, did anyone guess the theme? Garden Party was a good guess, but actually it was an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party! (That turned more into a regular garden tea party...) Whatever, the kids had a great time so no matter what the theme it was a success!

We were lucky enough to have the temperature drop this week into the mid '80s, plus we have a great shade spot in the afternoon. I started off by stringing some tissue paper flowers up between two trees, three of which were left over from a baby shower I helped with in the spring. I made the purple ones because it is Mistress's favorite color, and had a festive decoration for a small amount of money. Cost? $2 for the purple tissue paper. Everything else I already had. We also used the table and chairs from Mistress's room, and the one chair from the front porch. I actually liked the mix and match look and it worked perfectly. Cost? $0. The little topiary came from my friend's little girl's party and she was nice enough to offer it to me to use for Mistress's party. Again, no cost to me!

The tablecloth and napkins were a vintage find on ebay, for only $5! The little tea dishes are ones that my mom got for Mistress when she was first born. It was nice to get them out and use them!

I spent $3 on these little paper cups from Michael's arts and crafts and used half of them for strawberries. I also enlisted my sister in law to cut out ham, turkey, cheese, and bread into little scalloped circles for tea sandwiches.

Since we had just done the cupcake thing last weekend, I got Mistress's favorite cookies from Target and added the words 'Eat Me' to go with the whole Alice in Wonderland theme. A cake decorator I am not...

I also used the great idea of pre-scooping the ice cream before the party starts, using more of the little muffin cups. It saved so much time!

Mistress and Miss K find the table...

Mistress, Miss K and Miss A all find the tea party to be a lot of fun!

We did a simple craft, all the girls made footprint butterflies! We used paint that matched all of their rooms and each kiddo made three butterflies. Then at the end of the party each girl took home three prints, one of her own and one of each of the other two girls'. It ended up being really cute, and I've already hung Mistress's up in her room as a special keepsake!

After the party was over, we put the tissue flowers up over MM's bed. She is so excited!!!

Overall it was a successful party, although The Professor was attacked by wasps when DH stumbled across a nest in our railing. Luckily, it turns out that he is not allergic. The girls all played in the water table after eating using plastic tea cups and teapots, and ran around the backyard with their brothers. They are all worn out from the afternoon, as am I. It will be an early night tonight since tomorrow is a big day...SCHOOL STARTS!!!

Another Birthday on a Budget

Not quite two months ago, I posted here about my middle son's birthday party. I am a firm believer that you can have a fun birthday party for a child without taking a second mortgage on your house to do it, and since my first post on budget friendly birthdays was such a hit I decided to do a follow up post for my oldest son's seventh birthday. Let me start by saying that I knew right off the bat that I was going to be spending more on this one simply because of the number of children coming. My middle son was quite content to invite his two best friends to his party, my oldest however, is a social butterfly and wanted to invite his entire class. We settled on inviting all the boys, and when all was said and done there were 10 boys invited to his party. 10 little boys, a Star Wars Theme, and about $30. Here's how I did it...

Starting off, the favor bags. I was lucky enough to find Star Wars coloring books in the dollar bin at Target. I bought 10 of them, and then bought 10 packs of 8 count Crayola crayons. Add to that a little candy and you have a great favor bag for under $2 per kid.

Obviously the coloring books didn't fit into the little cellophane bags I had, so I just kept those separate. I put the crayons, two suckers, and one roll of smarties into each bag and tied them shut with twine.

Next up, the cake. Only my oldest is the only child in the world who doesn't like cake. Seriously, he has never eaten any of his own birthday cake. Even on his first birthday he ate one bite and turned his head. Anyway, he likes cookies, and I was fortunate enough to have two sets of Star Wars cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma. My mother bought the set with the heads for my kids this past summer, and my oldest's BFF got him the set of ships for Christmas this past year. They come with a great recipe for a short bread type cookie, and so I made those instead of a cake. He also doesn't like frosting, so I just sprinkled them with sugar and baked them.

An assortment of cookies cooling...

Hard to see, but they are sprinkled with sugar. Darth Vadar never looked sweeter...

Now onto decorations. The great thing about kids' birthday parties is that you can easily use their own toys for decorations. Most of the time, the theme they choose is something that they already have a ton of anyway. This party was no exception. I gathered up the little figures and a couple of ships, added some red, black, and white stars that I punched out of card stock, and ended up with a cute centerpiece for the table! The best part? Other than it being a free way to decorate, the boys were only too happy to take off with the toys after cookies and ice cream were served, so I didn't even have to clean them up.
The favors all laid out and waiting for the kids at the end of the party.
I put all the cookies on a cake pedestal. (I also almost dumped all of them when I picked up the pedestal to pass them out, but I digress.) I got the ice cream at Rite Aid a couple of weeks ago when it was free, (yup, I stacked the coupons and they paid me a dollar to take 6 containers of Edy's off their hands) and got juice boxes for the kids to drink. I was also lucky in that I dug out a pack of Star Wars napkins that my mom got the kids last summer as well to go with the cookie cutters. (She never spoils them or anything.)
And voila! The table all set and ready for the kids to come enjoy the party! It didn't look like this for long, but the party was a hit and the kids all had a great time. We ended up with six boys in the end, a couple of them weren't able to come at the last minute. And with that, I am off to lay down on the sofa and crash. I plan on a night of television and leftover cookies. Maybe I'll even be recovered enough for my daughter's birthday party in August...

I'm linking this to:

The Frugal Girls

A Birthday on a Budget

Kids' birthday parties have exploded in the past couple of decades. I can remember the parties my mom threw for us as kids. We never had a bounce house or costumed characters. We had simple homemade cakes, a few friends, and got to run around doing our own thing. Sure, we may have had a pin the tail on the donkey game or something, but nothing extravagant. And you know what? We had fun. It didn't matter that there weren't gift bags at the end worth $10 apiece or whether the cake came from the best bakery in town, we had a good time regardless! Now don't get me wrong, if you want to take the time to go all out with your child's party there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I have done it myself. I have just chosen in the last couple of years to downgrade a bit to save my own sanity!

My youngest son had the unfortunate luck to be born on December 22nd. It's a bad time of year to throw a birthday party. Everyone is in full holiday mode, and there aren't too many people who want to take time to go to a child's birthday party. Nonetheless, it is still his special day and I never want to overlook his birthday. This year I asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate. He decided to have his two best friends from preschool over to play and have cake and ice cream. He loves Legos and Star Wars and so I made his party into a Lego theme with Star Wars undertones. I didn't spend more than about $10, and he had a fantastic party! Here's how I did it...

Project: A Lego Birthday on a Budget

Time: Maybe an hour

Skill Level: Easy Peasy!

The cake: I used one cake mix prepared using the instructions given, and poured 4 cupcakes, then put the rest of the mix in a well greased 8x8 pan. Bake according to the instructions on the box. Remove from oven and cool completely.

Slice the tops off of the cupcakes. Sample the tops. After all, you need to make sure they are fit to eat. :)

Put your square cake on a platter, slide strips of waxed paper under the edges. This will keep your plate clean while you frost. Coat the square with frosting. My son's favorite color is yellow, so we had a yellow Lego.

Add the cupcakes to the top and frost completely.

I used a tube of yellow gel (found in the baking aisle at the grocery store) and wrote 'Lego' on each cupcake. I am obviously not a professional cake decorator, but my son loved the final effect which is really all that matters!

Carefully pull out your waxed paper and throw it away and you are finished!

Next I decided to carry the Lego/Star Wars theme through in the favors. I found these puzzles at the Dollar Store and got one for each of the two boys coming to the party.

I wrapped them each in solid color paper. What do you think, looking Legoish yet?

Next I used a circle punch to punch out six circles for each box.

Then I adhered them to the boxes and used a red marker to write 'Lego' on each circle.

Add in a couple of small candy bags and we had a complete Lego/Star Wars birthday for under $10. The cake wasn't perfect, but the kids thought it was cool and knew what it was, they loved the favors, and they all had a great time at the party. I'm going to go ahead and call this birthday on a budget a complete success!