Childrens Birthday Party - questions & ideas (merged)

eml_3 · 2 February 2005 at 10:57AM

I am having a fifth birthday party for my daughter soon and need to start thinking about party bags and games etc. Does anyone have any good money saving suggestions? I am making the food myself and have hired a church hall as the venue as our house is too small. Games that are good for a party made up mostly of girls (with 2 boys) would be good, and ideas for party bags or anything else?

Thanks

Sarahsaver · 2 February 2005 at 12:02PM

traditional is good and goes down well with parents too. I have been to flashy expensive parties yet the parents of the same kids have been impressed by our more humble affairs. Typical menu..
cheese sandwiches
jam sandwiches
cheap crisps (tesco value snack assortment)
a bunch of grapes
economy lemonade and orange juice
buns from the pound shop or homemade
homemade cake with garish icing and candles
party bags with a few sweets and goodies from the pound shop again
I try to keep thta sort of stuff to a budget £10 should be enough. You will only be throwing stuff away if you have too much.
games
pin the tail on the donkey, or stick the nose on something, print a pic off on your pc
do you have enough time to send for freebies off the freebies board as prizes?
blowing up balloons til they pop
dancing
the not laughing game - you stare the kids out til they laugh
also time - 2 hours is enough really
and dont give the adults plates as they are greedy pigs and secretly hanker after traditional party food...;)

aeuerby · 2 February 2005 at 12:04PM

I'm in a similar position except our daughter is going to be 8 and we are having the party at home.

I haven't fully decided on what we are going to do but it is going to be a games party. We have twister, probably my son's scalextric and possibly uno as well. I still have to come up with some other ideas.

Anyway, what I intend on doing is giving the kids a goody bag when they first walk in. Then as they play the games everyone will get a sweet/toy to put in the bag, thus filling their own bags. Also everyone gets a treat and not just the winner!!

What seems to go in bags here is sweets, small note pads - usually from asda around 9p I think! Pencils, crayons, pens and of course the birthday cake!!

Could you look into the hire of a bouncy castle? Not too sure how much they cost but at least the kids will mostly entertain themselves!

If I come up with anything else I'll let you know or if anyone has any ideas of other games for our party pleaser shout up!!

Angela.

Glad · 2 February 2005 at 12:13PM

pass the parcel is always popular [even into teens] especially if there is a sweet under each wrapper,

instead of having to cut birthday cake at end of party and wrap it for party bags I used to bake a batch of fairy cakes and using the squeezy tubes of icing for writing I wrote each childs name on one and put it in bag beforehand,

cheapest way of buying sweets for party bags was to go to local shop and choose 1p sweets, 200 sweets for £2 plenty for all bags

for younger children Woolworths do partybag gifts eg 8 bracelets for £1

bouncy balls are always good in partybags

Spendless · 2 February 2005 at 12:13PM

Pass the parcel.

Have a radio/cassette player. Put 4 adults each holding a different coloured lolly into a corner each. When music stops the children have to run to a corner. A lolly is picked out of a bag by person doing music - if he shouts say orange all the children in the corner that has a adult holding orange lolly is out. They get to sit down with the boiled lolly. and so on.

My eldest one is coming up 5, and from experience he cheats at musical bumps,statues. At least there's no argument with musical chairs.

Queenie · 2 February 2005 at 12:35PM

For my boys parties in the past, I have made:-

HM personalised and themed placemats (A4 size

) - had them laminated - scanned dot to dots on reverse side, downloaded pix of cartoon characters for the "theme"
name place cards
Personalised "Great Party Guest" certificates
name badges (imperative so you don't forget a childs name :eek: - had one myself: "Boss!" )

thank you cards
Personalised bookmarks
face masks
personalised HM kitkat wrappers.

All were designed on the computer (there are lots of printable freebies on the net that you can download and personalise ... I had a Craft CD which I did mine on).

As these were all themed and personalised, they got plopped into and formed the main part of the party bags - with a piece of cake, some Hasbro sweeties and a balloon.

Don't wish to blow my own trumpet here, but, other parents were soooo impressed, a couple asked me to design some for *their* kids b/day parties!

I already had ink/paper/etc. The only real cost was laminating, but after the 1st one (copy shops give discount the more you have done), a friend offered to do it for me at their place of work!

Themes we have used were: Pokemon, Disney film characters, Cartoon Network characters.

Queenie · 2 February 2005 at 1:02PM

Well I'll be blowed!!!

Foxy has posted a link to printable birthday party kits!!!!!!

Here ya go

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=24074

squarecat · 2 February 2005 at 1:25PM

collect old pop bottles and use them for skittles and hoopla.
fill with various amounts of water and vary the size of the ball to adjust difficulty.

if you have got a hard floor surface, you can do paper races, where you need to place a sheet of paper on the floor and blow it to move across the floor.

The chocolate game. Sit in a circle and take turns to throw a six when thrown a six they have to move out of the circle put on hat gloves scarf etc and used knife and fork to chop up bar of chocolate and eat! Keep going until the next six is thrown!

treasure hunt, hide mini choc bars with names on around the place thay have to find their own!

Poppy9 · 2 February 2005 at 5:45PM

Surprised nobody has mentioned the large bottle of wine for Mum after the party

I always buy party bag gifts in sales. i.e. Tesco hair and lippy sets which were selling for a £1 or £2 before Xmas were just 25p in January. Best buy was small perfume minature sets from boots had 5 bottles in a pack for 75p (reduced from about £7). Pens and pencils are always nice. I try not to put in chewie sweets or hard lollypops which are bad for the teeth. I prefer to stick with chocolate and cake bars. I have also tried just giving each child a nice helium filled balloon (better with younger ones who haven't cottoned onto the junk bags). At one party the mother gave every child a £1 book token instead of a party bag. Kids didn't like this :rolleyes:

I have in the past bought party boxes - they cost about 30p each and I prefilled with a roll, crisps, drink carton, cake bar and all the party bag stuff. This was really good after a pool party as after they have dressed you sing HB, cut the cake and give them each a box and off they go. No mess to clear up

If you buy the party boxes in bulk you can split the cost with friends and they work out cheaper.

If you are going for tables of food consider just chopping up a french stick and putting butter and ham or cheese slices on the table. They love to make their own butty and saves you making sandwiches. I wouldn't give them fizzy pop but weak squash to stop them getting to hyper.

If you have a PS2 you could take along a couple of dance mats for games or even bring along a Karaoke. Else I would consider a childrens entertainer.

Finally don't have a party lasting longer than 1.5 hours.

Glad · 2 February 2005 at 6:21PM

on the subject of party boxes

if I used the themed or colourful ones then I would put party bags goodies in a clear plastic bag and pop it in the box at the end for them to take home,

also local cake shops often sell plain cake boxes for around 10p per box

frizz_head · 2 February 2005 at 6:40PM

Last year my daughter was adamant she wanted a Harry Potter party (the film had just come out). So after a quick Google search I found a brilliant US party website, packed with fab ideas for every conceivable type of party. I was hooked for weeks. It runs along the lines of a chat site, whereby parents post details of parties that they have thrown. As it is a US site, they do everything so much grander than we do, but the ideas are great all the same. All the parents at my daughters school were stunned when the invitations we sent out were Hogwarts Acceptance letters, particularly when we asked the 'students' to reply via 'owl'. We found 'recipes' for making potions (baking soda and vinegar) and asked the children to write secret messages in lemon juice, which we then ironed to reveal the message. We had a 'sorting hat' ceremony where my husband hid with a taperecorder, which randomly shouted out the different Hogwarts houses.

Anyway I could go on all day, my point being, this website is packed with ideas for any type of party, and has great tips on being really creative on a budget. We have spent a fortune in the past hiring Gym clubs and entertainers, yet with a bit of time and effort, my daughter claimed last year was the best party she had ever had, and we didn't spend more than £40 on it, including the food and party bags.

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/

Good Luck.

Here is the link for all the different themes covered:-

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/party_ideas.html

Childrens Birthday Party - questions & ideas (merged)

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