Frugal Tip of the Day, birthday parties!!

Okay, so I know it has been a while since I posted a frugal tip of the day, but I have one for you today. Birthday parties, we all plan them, and know how expensive they can get. However, you can plan a party on a small budget, you just have to be creative. This past weekend my two and four year old had a combined birthday party. Their birthdays are seven days apart, so I wanted to do them together. The two year old is a girl and the four year old is a boy. The hardest thing to do was come up with a theme, but I finally decided on a Crayon party. Both of them love to color, so I thought it would be perfect, and it works for girls and boys.

The interesting thing is that I could not find any "Crayon Themed" decorations, so I got creative. First I went to the Dollar Tree, and took a look in their party section. They had plenty of plain colored plates, so I got blue and red. I went with the traditional primary colors because that is usually what I think of when I think of Crayons. I was also able to find goody bags, which I used to hold all of our party favors.

They also had tons of cute hanging decorations that were blue, red, yellow,and green. So, I got a few of those as well. I grabbed a couple of large packs of crayons to let the kids color with at the party too.

Next I went to Micheals Craft Store. I was not sure what I would find, but I was on a mission. When I walked in I saw a clearance rack over on the side, and guess what it had in it. Tons of Crayon things. I found little round tins that had crayons on them (I filled these with candy), packs of little paper cutouts that were made by Crayola (I used these to stick all over the walls), a table cloth, and two large coloring pictures. All were $0.50 each!!

Next, I grabbed a roll of art paper. You know the plain white paper. I used it to roll out over the table at the party and let the kids color on it.

After that I went by the party store. I have to admit that was my last option, because I thought their prices would be too high. However, I was surprised, I found a bag with 12 little packs of crayons, and 12 coloring books for $5.99. I also found two small little buckets for $0.98 each (I used these to hold the crayons on the table that the kids used to color on the table).

As far as the cake goes, I made it myself. I have a book that has different birthday cakes in it, and they happened to have a Crayon cake.

So, my main point here is that you can plan and pull off a birthday party with a small budget, even if it is for two children. The key is to think outside of the box, and be creative!!