What to do instead of party bags?

funnythings

when my daughter was younger i brought CELLOPHANE cone BAGS and filled with marshmellows and tied with ribbons

but you could always fill with other sweets

just to add you can buy the cone bags on ebay

mummybear3

My sister usually buys large bars of chocolate (Cadbury/Galaxy type) when they are on offer around £1, the kids all love having a big bar. Other years she has bought a single item at around £1 dependning on what she can get on sale eg Hula hoops for girls, balls ect. We have Cash and Carry Warehouses in Glasgow, maybe you have something similar where you can pick up these sort of things.

shortdog

We had two parties last year - my sons friends all took home a book and a cake, and my daughters friends got a make your own bracelet kit (I stole the idea from Ebay, but we made our own) - girls got sparkle beads, cats eye chips and little silver beads, boys had wooden beads and little silver beads, and all had a halloween charm, and the letters that make up their name. They had a bit of beading elastic, simple instructions, and a pretty little bag to keep it in. That was in november last year, and some of the kids are still wearing their bracelets, and all of the mums said what a good idea it was.
Only downside was that my DD invited half the school to the party (disco in a hall, so it didn't really matter how many there was), and I spent hours putting fiddly little beads into bags, and sorting out letters and names.

mum2one

for DD 8th and bday she had a cinema morning, the goodie bags, i brought a selection of different sweets and popped them in a cello bag with ribbon, worked out £1 per bag.
I gave bottle pop and popcorn for the film, but kept the sweets to the end.

Last yr - her 9th
I did a girlie gift bag, hair slides, fancy grips, mini brush, keyring, worked out about £1.50 per bag, the girls loved it.

beautiful_ravens

I got hold of those 'build your own styrofoam aeroplane kits' joblots on ebay, about a pound for 5. Party bags are a bit predictable now..so I just trawled ebay looking for joblots of interesting things - bouncy balls, small intruments etc, I also gave up the girly/boyish themes and just tried to get something to suit both. Type in 'joblot' or 'wholesale' or 'bulk' and 'toys' or similar.

hazyjo

Some friendship bracelets on ebay (bulk buy).

Or maybe an actual girlie bag they can use/keep with something girlie inside.

Claire's might have something suitable - or, as above, bulk buy something off ebay.

Jx

suejb2

Home Bargains have some collapsible drink bottles pink, blue cow, camo etc for 75p

toniq

I used to tie a blown up balloon to a bag containing cake! kids love balloons!!

I refuse/d to get involved in expensive goody bags, no need as kids abandon them within minutes.
x

themull1

I don't think that 8 is too old for a party bag, i would just get some stuff ffom poundland to do some, and keep the costs down, i used to buy two extra cheaper cakes if there was a lot of kids, and cut this in advance for the bags.

alias*alibi

My DD had a moshi themed party for her 7 th. I kept it cheap with the party bags by buying moshi blind bags (2 moshi's in each one) and popping a moshi in each bag; some moshi tattoos again 2 per pack split in half and a moshi badge each; they came in a pack of 4. Each bag was about £2 after I'd popped some sweets in them.