Though we have wrapped up a few smaller projects around the house that I *promise* I will get around to photographing and blogging sometime, I thought I'd share my most recent proud accomplishment: we threw a fun, festive 3rd birthday party for our firstborn son this past weekend, and we did it ALL for under $40!
Yellow hat (plate & cup with black electrical tape)
and party favors (bags of bananas and Curious George fruit snacks)
The decor. Streamers are cheap and super-festive!
Two rolls transformed our living and dining rooms into Party Central!
The food table (inside.... duplicates of all were outside)
"Yellow Hats" were corn mini-muffins with hot-dog halves in the middle!
Pillsbury cupcakes, food-coloring dyed frosting, and sprinkles.
Cupcake toppers designed by Hubby and printed on his work printer
(we don't have a color printer at home)
"Monkey Pudding" was a low-fat version of Paula Deen's delicious recipe!
Water bottles covered with paper wraps and home-made (Hubby-designed) labels
Our patio and pergola "outdoor room" decorated and stocked with food too...
Too bad it was 110* outside so the kids could only stand to be outside for about 5-10 minutes
(and us adults, even less than that!)
Hint: this is a sneakpeak at two of our latest projects...more to come...sometime.
Gimme a break, I have a newborn and a three year old!
Hint: this is a sneakpeak at two of our latest projects...more to come...sometime.
Gimme a break, I have a newborn and a three year old!
Budget Breakdown
$1.88 - 2 boxes of Curious George Fruit Snacks for favors
$1.93 - bag of bananas from Costco for favors
$1.79 - 20 favor bags and twist ties from Michael's (with 40% off coupon)
$2.99ea - 2 rolls of streamers from Target
$2.99 - pack of 2 red plastic tablecloths from Target
$2.99 - 60 yellow paper plates from Target
approx $2.49 - 24 yellow paper cups from Party City
approx $13 - all groceries for food served at party
$2.97 - 15 pk of bottled water from Target
$1.50 - 3 sheets of 12x12 scrapbook paper from Michael's used for food labels
FREE - skewers for cupcake toppers
FREE - Jungle Juice (already owned Kool-Aid mix and green food coloring)
FREE - napkins, skewers, forks, and spoons (already owned)
$1ea - packs of red and yellow straws, 100 of a single color per pack
FREE - coloring sheets of Curious George (printed from online)
Total: $39.52
I think that's everything...
Not bad for a party for 10 adults and 7 kids (plus a non-solids-eating-baby!) with leftovers for our dinner that night, too!
I'm quite impressed with how festive and how much we were able to celebrate with our theme for such a low budget, including food and favors! Part of what helped was using lots of sales at Kroger with our Kroger Plus card, watching for sales and keeping the party size small so we didn't need a lot of any thing to provide for everyone. We also had our son's party 10AM-Noon, both to wear him out before his 12:30ish PM naptime and to keep the expectation for a lot of food low since it wasn't at mealtime.
Have you thrown a fun budget-friendly party for your little ones or do you blow the budget to celebrate all the fun they bring each year?
Love it all!
ReplyDeletewhat a fun party! i will have to remember these ideas as marshall is into monekys and trains. this year we went with trains, but next year i'm thinkin' monkeys (again - 1st b-day was also monkeys) and will be stealing!
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