My Frugal Los Angeles Life http://www.myfrugallife.com/blog_mrsdawn.html How to be frugal and live well in a big expensive city! en-us How to throw the best kids party with little money Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:20:01 GMT http://www.myfrugallife.com/post59087536_mrsdawn.html <p>I recently had the task of planing my daughters 7th birthday for her and 11 of her friends. Here is how I made it look like my husband and I spend a lot of cash with out actually doing it.</p> <p>Party Favors: I am against giving large amounts of candy or small un-useable toys.</p> <p>&nbsp;So to avoid this I went to claires. They were having a 10 for 10 sale. I bought 12 necalaces which retailed orginanlly for $7.00&nbsp; and 12&nbsp; lotions and bodywashes which were orgianlly 3.00 a piece.</p> <p>Each bag cost me $2. I bought tinkerbell paper lunch bags to put the favors in a 10pk was $1 at the .99c store.</p> <p>For the two boys that came. I bought each of them a $2 chalk bucket from Michaels.</p> <p>Games</p> <p>We did a potato sack race for prizes (Two winners) (sacs were purchased at wal-mart (5.99) as were the suncatcher making kits which were on clearance in the craft department for 2.00.</p> <p>We made a home made pinata, water-baloons, and large batch of bubbles. ( pinata I saved candy from halloween and parties my kids had been to in a ziplock bag which i used to fill it)</p> <p>Food/drinks</p> <p>All the food was homemade.(Picked things I knew the kids would like but so would the grown-ups) Recipes came from foodnetwork and marthstewart.com. (Huge hit). I made cupcakes instead of cake. One of the girls told me it tasted just like store bought.</p> <p>We used bottled beverages instead of canned. No juice boxes, Just bottled apple juice. We also made homemade sangria for the (grown-ups).&nbsp;</p> <p>Our splurges</p> <p>Decorations. We did a Hawaiian theme.(We went to party city and .99c store and spent about $40.00 including a music cd) I got flower necklaces from freecycle!!! Enough for everyone!</p> <p>I made a happy birthday window clings using&nbsp; gallery glass. We also bought one of those balloon time helium takes using a 50% of coupon from Michaels.</p> <p>Invitations</p> <p>We did evite but we had some picture cards from a pic from the party made from walgreens and sent them out as thank you notes.</p> <p>Everything was a huge sucess. The adults had fun and so did the kids. It felt great to get the complements from people who thought my husband and I really spent the bucks!</p> <p>The party cost us much less than it would have to have in any-where else. In Los Angeles where we live the parties at the zoo and other places start at $300.00</p> <p>Which in my opinion is crazy.</p> <p>Good luck throwing your next birthday bash!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>