Clowns are great entertainment

For Ebonii's 2nd birthday my 13 year old daughter dressed up as a clown for her party.  It was great entertainment for small children.  My mum has a friend with a costume shop so we did get cheap hire of the costume and as I have mentioned India is very creative so she was able to do face painting for the kids and she made balloon animals.  The balloon animals come in packs with instructions so it isn't hard to do and you can find them for about $2 a packet.  I really wanted her to be carrying balloons but helium balloons were well above our budget so instead we brought balloon sticks from the supermarket, a pack of 10 for about $2.50 and a normal packet of round balloons for $2. She was a little bit embarrassed but she did very well.

A Construction Party for our digger loving little man

Gabriel loves diggers and trucks.  It wasn't hard to think that a Construction themed birthday party would be perfect for his second birthday.  The main feature for his birthday really just needed to be the sand pit in our back yard and there was plenty of stuff that we had. I made some construction signs with a black pen and orange paper, got orange balloons and yellow ribbon and we got out our orange construction fencing from our renovations. We also got out heaps of cars and trucks for the kids to play with.  I also made some fake boulders out of newspaper and stockings.  It was an incomplete idea I think but the kids actually had a ball with them and Gabriel used them with his new digger.

Same as with Ebonii's party I sent out invites on Facebook, sending out photos of Gabriel dressed up in his construction clothes. I asked people to come dressed in their best construction clothes.

One of the great finds were construction plastic party hats that I found down at Kmart for $2 each.  We needed about 18 of them, so it was a bit of an expense but was the one extravagance.  I also hunted in cheap shops for a workers top or work vest for all of us, we found one at Vinnies for Kelly and I got one from Kmart.  Ebonii just wore a flannelette shirt and singlet and shorts and Gabriel put on his own dress up gear with his Blunstone boots, India put her own spin on a workers outfit in a shirt and skirt with Docs.  Others got into the spirit wearing work clothes, boots and hard hats.

Me with the kids cutting the cake

Kelly looking very much like the foreman

Mia in her flanny jacket

I never planned on blogging this party so my photo's are limited as I was very busy on the day. For the food table we used a black plastic table cloth and white tape to mark out a cross road.  The little construction signs say "Dig In".  The signs were made from little pieces of orange paper glued to ice cream sticks and made to stand up by cutting a small hole in the top of a lid off a milk carton and pushing the stick through.

The cupcakes had yellow icing and I used a black icing writing pen to make construction signs.  I wrote things like "caution" and "stop"and drew arrows.

The chips for the party where in the back of a couple of toy trucks that I borrowed.  We found orange plates and the cups for the party had construction stickers put on them.  I also made homemade sausage rolls and as a special treat a friend brought along her fairy floss machine which was a hit with the kids.

The cake was a truck.  By no means my finest moment but still it looks like a truck and Gabriel was happy.

My mum made a truck out of a watermelon which was a big hit and a friend made the "Tiny Teddy Cars"that are always a favorite of the kids.

We had two games, pin the wheels on the truck.  I drew a picture of a truck on a large piece of paper.  And the next game was a treasure hunt in the sand pit.  India hid Freddo frogs in the sand pit and the children one at a time got to find one each. One of the best things we ever brought as a Christmas present for the kids was the jumping castle and it is always great entertainment for the kids at Birthday Parties.

The party bags were just paper bags with a construction sticker on them and a thank you message written on them.  They had lollies and some little toys in them.

Hard to tell with a two year old but I think he loved his party.  He is already asking for a Dinosaur Party for his third birthday party which is going to be a whole new challenge.

Gabriel on his new digger from Grandma

Money saving tips for theme parties

• Use what you have.  If you need cardboard, save it from boxes and packages, especially as so many presents that you buy come in great boxes that would otherwise be thrown away.  Milk carton lids made great stands for the little signs for the food table but they have a million other uses. I have a craft cupboard and I buy craft stuff cheap when I see it but also I will use anything that I find, old t shirts, sheets, tiles, wood, toilet rolls, the list could be endless.
• Research ideas online and then look for cheap alternatives.  You don't need to buy specific party plates with your theme design, quite often a color will do and if you want, a sheet of stickers in you theme is a great alternative and cheaper.  
• Stick to certain colors as they can add to the theme.  Gabriel's party had an orange and yellow theme and with Ebonii I used a Rainbow theme.  For Kelly's 40th I used black and gold as the theme.  Makes it easy to decorate and adds to the look. Don't underestimate balloons for decorations, they are cheap and adds loads of color.
• Friends are a great resource.  It is great to pool resources for parties, we regularly lend other people our jumping castle and have been lucky to borrow things for our parties.  Anything like large toys are great for younger kids, bubble machines, ice cream machines, popcorn machines, hot dog machines, fairy floss machines, props like the trucks on our tables, and even things like folding tables would be great for some people to borrow rather than buy yourself.  
• The cheap shops like Shiploads, Chickenfeed, the Reject Shop and Spotlight (that's just in Tasmania) are your friend.  . They are great for stickers and paper and craft things, plates, serviettes, and other party needs.  Once you know your theme and what you would like to do just keep your eyes and ears open you will find what you need.  Also don't forget the supermarkets, I was able to pick up a packet of orange balloons at Coles for 50c for Gabriel's party and that was what started the orange and yellow theme.
• Costumes add to a theme but it only has to be one thing like a unicorn horn or a construction hat or a pirate patch for a pirate party. Also OP shops are great for costumes.  You don't need to spend a fortune, with a needle and cotton you can transform many things into what you want.  If adults and hosts get involved I think it adds to the theme and the kids love it.
• You can't do everything. This is often my problem. I have too many ideas and not a enough time or money to do them.  It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be fun.  Better to do a couple thing well than heaps of things and have no time to enjoy every thing.
• Get the kids involved. Part of the fun is getting them to help, it keeps them entertained and in the end they can also be proud of their efforts.
• Asking friends to help out with food is a great way for the size of the food bill to decrease, but you have to be prepared to do the same when they have a party as well.
• My number one tip for saving money is to not go and look at the expensive stuff.  You can avoid temptation by not looking and then your party will still look great in your eyes.

Magical Unicorn Birthday Party

When my daughter first asked for a unicorn themed birthday party for her fourth birthday I was initially stumped, we had just thrown a construction themed birthday party for our two year old little boy Gabriel which seemed quite easy compared to unicorns (I will blog his party next).  I mentioned it to a few friends and one of my friends found a unicorn pinata for $15 and after that and a lot of surfing online for ideas (mostly here) the creative juices began to flow.  

Unicorn horns

I was also really inspired by the blogs from other mums around the globe that that went to extraordinary lengths to throw unbelievable parties for their children.  Some spending what must be a fortune but others doing amazing things on a budget.  Our party was going to have to be on a budget but I did think I wanted to achieve many of the things I had seen online but as cheap as possible.

Firstly I found the idea of making unicorn horns for the children (and adults if so desired).  I looked for the right paper  but it would have cost upwards of $20 so in the end I used paper that I had in my craft draw and sprinkled glitter on them in different colors; blue, white and pink to cater for different tastes, the cost was $5 for the elastic and $4 for the glitter but I had heaps left over that I used as fairy dust at the party. I made an origami box to hold the fairy dust.

The picture that was sent out on  Facebook

A huge saving was made with the invitations.  I took a picture of my daughter Ebonii wearing one of the unicorn horns and sent out invites on Facebook. I guess I am lucky that nearly everybody (except my dad, so I rang him) who   I wanted to invite is on Facebook but it saved us heaps (cost nothing actually) and it is easy for people to reply.

My decoration ideas started to take shape, I wanted to turn our backyard into an enchanted garden.  But what was I going to do with our ugly clothes line?  

One of my favorite books from my 

child- hood was the The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton which is where the idea of turning the clothes line into an enchanted tree came from.  In my mind unicorns equal magical so India (my creative 15 year old daughter) and myself brain stormed everything magical.  The clothes line was tricky and I ended up sacrificing one of my king size white flat sheets to cover the top. I used a bit of green dye (I couldn't find green clothes dye in the shops so I used food dye that I had in my cupboard) to make it look tree like and cut up a green table cloth that I brought at the second hand shop for $2 to look like leaves.  If I had of had money I would have brought green hessian to cover the top of the clothesline but I used what I had rather than spending money that I didn't have. Still using what I had I made origami flowers to hang on the line it is just a very simple Lily and I can now fold this in my sleep I think. Cheap scrap-booking paper is perfect because it is square and comes in so many different colors and patterns, and then for vines I cut leaves out of different shades and patterns of green and stapled them to curling ribbon to make hanging vines, I used the scraps as weights at the bottom of the vines. The ribbon costs $2 for a huge roll at Chickenfeed and I already had this in quite few shades of pink and I still have heaps left.  Ebonii even made her own vines to hang and Gabriel practiced his cutting skills for this so it was a good craft activity with the kids.

These flowers made a great take home treat from the party as well as a wonderful
decoration that didn't take up as much time as you would think.

The banner for the party was made out of newspaper, the $2 large curling ribbon that I used for the vines, gold paint, glitter and letters cut out from pink glitter paper that cost me $4.  It said Happy Birthday Ebonii and I just folded one sheet into a triangle and painted the front gold and sprinkled on gold glitter (I already had some left over from a previous party but I think it was $5 to buy from spotlight).  The triangles were stapled onto the curling ribbon.

The unicorn crossing was a last minute idea that we added for fun on the morning of the party.  We used a bit of cardboard from the boxes of Ebonii's birthday presents, India cut out a picture that I had drawn a couple of weeks ago of a Unicorn and stuck it on after coloring it in black and we drew a zebra crossing in rainbow colors across the footpath, Kelly (aka dad) wired it to a post.  It was also his idea for the unicorn crossing to be in rainbow colors.

Other decorations included paper mache dragon flies and a ladybug, which awere just made out of cardboard, newspaper, PVA glue and paint.  Ebonii had butterflies in her room that I took out side and hung about.  The large butterfly was $5 from Chickenfeed. India wrote 'Unicorn Land' on the blackboard and we strung rainbow colored streamers about.  Ebonii and I painted a rainbow on cardboard ($1 a sheet), she painted one side (with some assistance) and I painted the other. The little toadstools were cut out of a box left over from Christmas presents and painted red and white, I taped tent pegs onto the back of them and stuck them into the ground.  The sunflowers and daisies in the backyard certainly helped to add to the effect as did the bubble machine we borrowed from a friend.

So, food isn't my strong point but I just kept with the unicorn theme. I made unicorn cupcakes, this was one cupcake packet mix and I covered a mini ice-cream cone with icing and hundreds and thousands.

One of our family favorites that have been at parties for years made by my Nan (who has since handed over the reigns to my mum) is cream horns, so I ordered these from my mum.

I brought rainbow colored musk sticks for $2 a packet, Wizz Fizz cones and rainbow straws.  I made a big platter of fruit, watermelon and strawberries.

Another idea I got off the internet was printed labels for water bottles for everyone.  We found an image on the computer and India created the labels.  She even found unicorn font on the computer.

"Fresh waters from the springs of Unicorn Land to bring you eternal health and power beyond your wildest dreams."

I made labels and used a stamp I had found for $2.

My mum brought the flowers from her wonderful garden and the letter E was brought for $3 and painted.

The idea for the cake came from rainbow layered smash cakes I had seen online.  Again it is just two packet mixes dyed different colours and was easy to the point even I could do it.  As you may have guessed my unicorn obsessed little girl got many unicorn presents for her party and the cake topper was a unicorn from the My Little Pony collection that we gave to her for her birthday.

The games and activities for the party were Pass the Parcel and Pin the Unicorn Horn on the Unicorn (brought on ebay for $6, it was a bit smaller than I had hoped but it was one less think I had to make) and a Unicorn Pinata. We also printed out coloring pages from the internet for the children to color in. We also had our own Jumping Castle which we set up in the backyard for the children to play on.

As a take home gift I dipped waffle cones in white chocolate and sprinkles and filled them with lollies in a clear plastic bag tied with ribbon. Also the children that wanted (some boys refused) could choose a flower off the Enchanted Tree.

All in all it was a great success. Heaps of hard work and commitment was involved but I loved it and miss it now that it is over. I had heaps of additional ideas that I would have done if I had more time and more money, but we didn't and it didn't really matter if it wasn't perfectly perfect; it was fun.  Ebonii loved it, although she did announce later that night that now that she was four she was probably too old for Unicorns, but like I told her I don't think you are ever too old for unicorns.

Ebonii with her cousins Mia and Aynee