Sunday, July 18, 2010

M's Yellow Birthday Party


This past week when M turned three we celebrated our first ever real birthday party at our house. I'm afraid I got a little more carried away with it than I had originally intended (I don't like the idea of setting a precedent of too much expense or fuss) but we also found some good ways for making it fun while keeping it relatively inexpensive.

1. We chose a simple party theme: the color yellow (M's favorite) Having a theme that wasn't too specific made it easier to take advantage of sales, etc.

2. Homemade cake. Making it myself was much less expensive and all I did was cover it with yellow frosting and colored Necco candies. It was easy and cute!

3. Much of the table and serving ware was complimentary because I was reviewing it for Smarty had a Party, a company that specializes in elegant disposable dinnerware. They sent some really nice things for us to use: napkins, plates, tablecloths, cups, fun yellow petals to sprinkle on the tables as well as really nice flatware that looked like real silverware. Probably the nicest thing though was the set of wood skewers with yellow wooden balls on the ends for easy holding. Those really looked nice and worked well!

4. Big bunches of yellow wildflowers from a nearby field brightened up the party for free!

5. Homemade party favors, decorations and activities. I'll be writing specific posts about some of those later this week.I'd love to hear more idea for creative and inexpensive birthday parties for use in future years. Please feel free to leave ideas in the comments section!

4 comments:

Megan said...

Last year for my son's 4th birthday, I used toilet paper and 1/2 paper towel tolls wrapped in brown mailing paper to hold a few small things as favors. They looked really cute, and the kids loved it!

I just found your blog, and it's awesome! I'll be back for sure!

Unknown said...

For D's birthday we invited friends to the local park for a baseball themed afternoon. We grilled hot dogs, played wiffle ball, and sent home party favors of peanuts that I got cheaply in bulk.

Unknown said...

for my oldest son's 3'd bday, we got some fabric with trucks on it and used that as the table cloth (ONE day, lol, it'll be made into a blanket/pillow case for him...ONE DAY, lol) and got orange plastic ware. We used his dump trucks to hold chips/snacks. Orange and yellow cupcakes to go with the colors in the fabric.

For My youngests' 2nd we'll be doing the same by getting fabric for the table cloth (sock monkey this time) and doing white cake cupcakes w/ white icing with brown and red sprinkles...a friend knitted a sock monkey hat for a "center piece" and we'll get red plates/plastic ware...And yes, ONE DAY, that fabric will turn into a pillow case/blanket too ;-)

I have loved using the fabric as the "main theme" and coordinating around that.

Sarah said...

For D's birthday we invited friends to the local park for a baseball themed afternoon. We grilled hot dogs, played wiffle ball, and sent home party favors of peanuts that I got cheaply in bulk.