Frugal Friday: Birthday Edition

My youngest daughter turned six a couple of weeks ago. Next week we'll be having her party. In the past Little's birthdays have been smaller affairs. But this year she is in kindergarten and has gobs and gobs of friends. Her mother is also a sucker and doesn't want to leave anyone out. So we invited all twenty-one kids from her class. Yes. Twenty-one. They won't all show up, will they? No. They couldn't possibly. Nonetheless, if they do all show, we'll be ready.

The party will be at our house. Old carpets, mediocre furniture and scratched wood floors are perfect for a mob of five and six year olds. The theme is "Winter Wonderland". Already we made these fun snowflakes for the windows. The birthday crown has been crafted and I'm hoping to sew a bunting before next week (from my thrifted fabric stash of course).

We'll be making cupcakes -- some decorated with these toppers and some like this (assuming I can figure out how to make the snowflakes). Cupcakes are a birthday tradition in the Peculiar Household and I'm rather excited to get baking.

Now on to activities. Little loves, as in absolutely adores, snow globes. As such we'll be making our own. For months I've been collecting glass jars of all shapes and sizes. I've also been gathering figurines while out thrifting. Plus I picked up a few spiderman and fairy cake toppers that ought to do nicely.

We are working on the snow globe prototype today. The good news is that it doesn't leak (I used a silicone glue around the inside of the lid). However there is quite a bit of "white space" and it would be nice if the figurine were raised a bit. How to do this? How to do this? Back to the drawing board for this one. I am soliciting brilliant ideas - if you have any please let me know.

As for other activities I'm not sure yet. I was considering a game of twister, perhaps pin the tail on something and/or a fishing game. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear what you do for parties.

And, finally, the party favors. Of course each child will get to take home a snow globe. But I also want to send them with a goody bag. I want something that will foster creativity and keep the party goers occupied. I'm not fond of plastic junk that soon fills the landfill. But what to do?

Then yesterday I found a great deal on little colored pencil packs at Michael's - eight small colored pencils for a dollar. And those pencils triggered my memory -- handmade coloring books (something I intended to make for the holidays but didn't quite get around to).

Using this tutorial and this one a coloring book came to fruition. We already had card stock (thank you Stephanie!), paper and ink. Instead of book binding tape we used blue painters tape. It worked quite nicely thank you very much. I did splurge and buy a corner trimmer (what a cool gadget!). We used drawings found online - one animal for each letter of the alphabet. (Twenty bonus points to the person who guesses what animal we used for the letter "x"!). All in all it was relatively easy.

Whew! *wipes brow*. And there you have it. A birthday party for, potentially, twenty plus kids. All that for under $100.00. (The total amount spent thus far is about $50.00 but I'm giving myself a cushion for unanticipated expenses).

Happy Frugal Friday!