Birthday Party

I love having traditional birthday parties at home. Poundland sometimes sell small gift bags 10 for a £1 which would be perfect for party bags. Or alternatively you could get some plastic pint glasses and fill them with treats and then wrap them in clear cellophane with some pretty ribbons. One of the games that mine enjoyed most at their last party was pin the donkey.

When I was a kid everyone had parties at home for a few friends and I had quite a few different themes. I am trying to remember them and can only think of a few, they were:

Teddy Bears picnic - I was very young so I can't really remembe this one but I remember we all brought our teddy's and had a picnic on the dinning room floor.

Back to front party - You wear all your clothes backwards and play the games backwards i.e musical bumps, sit on the floor and bop about then, when the music stops you have to get up fast. We had name badges (just made of card) with our name on written backwards and we spent all day (and most of the rest of the week) calling each other by our backwards names i.e. Zzitlag (OK, my name doesn't work very well at all).

Pirate party - Come dressed as a pirate, or my little relative was dressed as a parrot, draw a treasure map of the garden and hunt the treasure, play pin the hook on Captin hook (instead of the tail on the donkey)

Barbeque party - My birthday is in Autumn so it was freezing but we put a cover over the BBQ so it didn't go out in the rain and ate everything inside.

I think anything that is a bit different will be fun for kids. We didn't have McDonalds parties to compare but I loved these parties I had and remember them fondly.

Elven Princess - Have you thought about a cake? I had a princess cake once and it was really easy to make. Bake a sponge cake in a pudding bowl. Get one of your daughters Sindy/ Barbie/ Brats dolls and pull her legs off :eek: Put the cake flat side down, make a small hole in the top and shove Sindy/ Barbie/ Brat in. Ice the cake and decorate it with icing, silver balls ect. If you use an icing bag you can pipe the top of the dress onto the doll too. Hey presto you have a beautiful princess cake!

Just to add to this old thread regarding party bags for girls.

If you go ionto e-bay and into wholesale joblots and type in hair accessories, you can get some really cheap bargains. I recently bought 50 carded items of hair and jewelery items which in toal cost me Just over £5.00 including postage. Use what you need for the party bags, save the rest for presents for other party invites or sell at car boot for 50p each. I currently do this and regulrly sell a £5.00 worth of those per bootsale. By the way they were all ex claires accerssories and george items most pirced originally at £2-£3 each.

I have to say my son and his friends love party bags - even though they are full of cheap tat. I buy stuff from poundland - 10 football whistles, 10 gel pens and yoyos etc. Only the other day he was playing with something he got from a party bag last year! He does like things with his name on too but that might be because his name is fairly uncommon and so we can't buy keyrings etc with it on.