Birthday Party on a Budget

With BJ's birthday the other day, I never really set out to do it on a budget or anything. It was more in my head a case of "what can I make myself" as that it just the way I think I guess. I have seen really nice party sets of cups & plates & party bags etc that have construction things on them. I had in mind I would find something like that. But I never really got around to it as I hadn't really had the cash on me at any stage recently to go & buy them if I was. But being crafty minded I still had in my mind to do some of my own things.

So it started off a few months ago at any one's birthday we went to, he was expecting to see a cake with a digger on it. I told him he could have a digger cake. But for a toddler the concept of time is nothing still so 3 months ago that wasn't really helpful! lol Anyway, with that in mind for his cake & the idea that I wasn't going to try to make a cake that was a shape of a digger, it went to a cake with a digger on top that he can play with. Cool. Part one... so next the clip art... find some free clip art of construction things that will work. I had in mind some cupcake toppers so printed a few pictures up for something like that. Then I blew some up a bit bigger thinking I could put the kids names on them for party bags too. So I printed up a bunch. Brown paper bags are pretty easy to get hold of I guess. I picked up 7 at work. I was quite pleased with these party bags in the end.

The party bags didn't contain the usual balloons, lollies or anything else like that. We found some construction vehicle sticker books for the boys plus a vehicle to actually play with that went in for the boys. We had 2 girls at the party of different ages so I did age appropriate girl things in their bags that were girlie.

As the day got nearer I decided not to do cupcakes as well as a birthday cake so I used a couple of pages of my printed clip art as confetti pictures just on the table. I didn't have a table cover with diggers or anything on it, so a bunch of clip art pics did the trick.

Then the digger juice. I had a few pages of pics that I cut the strips of pictures from. They fit perfectly around a pop top juice bottle. Each bottle had 3 pics around the middle - diggers or bulldozers. They were a hit I think. Digger juice is in vogue for sure! bwahahahahaha....

For kids this age, one thing I learnt recently at another party is that the kids are more interested in playing with the different toys at the house they are at rather than go to eat party food. So we kept the food to a few basics - potato chips, little hot dogs, mini sausage rolls, a small bowl of lollies, some cookies I had done in the shape of dozers & cranes, watermelon slices & some marshmallows. All that topped off with birthday cake covered in icing & lollies was more than enough of a sugar hit for the kids! lol Kids only eat the lollies off the cake & lick some of the icing. They don't really eat cake much! So that was good to know in advance. As a result, we had a really great day with minor expense & minor effort I think. I think the kids had a good time too. It's always fun going to play at other peoples houses, & even more fun when it's a party but it sure doesn't need to be the event of the century. Well I can't manage that & as I hear more & more, there are plenty that can't. I hadn't really thought about it much before but there are simple ways to make a party memorable without blowing the budget.

Friends & family are the first thing though. Remember that. They are the important ones in the lives of a kid growing up. We are lucky enough to already be good friends with other kids BJ's age that he will go to school with in a few years time so it is lovely for all the boys that they know each other from such an early time in their lives. I have one friend myself that I can say I have known since ummm... forever... we never didn't know each other. It will be lovely in a number of years to hear these boys all be able to say something like that when they are adults.

Ok, now I am really carrying on so I will leave it here for now. The long weekend is nearly over & the cake decorator is even going back to work tomorrow after about 2 months off work. I don't know who will miss him more - BJ or I? Certainly has been handy having him home at times. Seeya later....