I am a planner by nature.  I have been known to start planning my child’s next birthday before I even get through her current birthday.  I’m so bad it has worn off on my 10 year old daughter.  She just turned 10 and she has already told me what she wants to do next year.  Let me tell you, the planning has really paid off though.  Every year I provide my children with a party they aren’t soon to forget and many of my friends come to me for party planning help to give their children that unforgettable birthday party.  I am going to share with you some of our favorite parties to date.

A Year In The Life Of Baby Party

The 1st birthday is a big deal.  I am not big on using a specific character theme for the 1st birthday.  One year olds don’t generally have a character preference yet.  It’s not really for the child, as she isn’t going to remember this day, and it’s more for the adults.  So I am all about creating tangible memories of the day for the child to look back on.  I missed the ball with my oldest daughter, but I went all out for my middle daughter.  I made this as an invitation for her…

That was the cover of the card.  Inside I wrote:

“It all began (insert date of birth and time here) when (insert child’s name here) came into the world.

We have watched her grow and change.  Shes gone from rolling to sitting to crawling to standing and almost walking.  Now it is time to get together and share in the joys of insert child’s name here 1st birthday.

On (insert date of party here) we will be having a birthday party at (insert time and location of party here).

(Everyone is asked to come ready to share a fond memory they have had with (insert child’s name here), or a piece of wisdom for her, or perhaps a touching poem you would like to share with her!)

Please come with plenty of memories and be prepared to share in a joyous event!”

I had created a scrapbook of her first year which all of the poems and wisdom went into along with notes from everyone who came.

For my son I did a slightly different twist on it.  We created a time capsule for him which we will open on his 16th birthday.  I asked all of the guests for the same things I asked for in my middle daughter’s invitation.  All of that went into the time capsule along with a few other things from his first year, including his DOC Band Helmet and his hospital bracelets.  And now two out of four of my children anyways will know exactly what was important to the ones who love them at that point in time of their lives.

Fairy Tea Party

Of course what little girl doesn’t love a tea party?  My middle daughter being a huge fan of Tinkerbell had to have a fairy tea party one year.  So for her 7th birthday we put together a tea party fit for a fairy.

Tea pot shaped invites:

I folded a piece of card stock in half and cut out the shape of a tea pot making sure not to cut along the fold.  On the front I wrote, “Come to a Fairytastic Tea”.  Inside was this cute little verse:

“Peek into the land of Fairytopia and what will you see?
A sparkly little fairy, flying amongst the trees.
Her name is insert child’s name here and she’s turning insert age here.
Please join us for a party,
Where there will be lots of food and tricks.
The good fairies there will help you earn your wings,
and we’ll play games together
and make pretty fairy things.
Hope you can join us!”

We had little tea sandwiches (PB&J cut up into small squares).  I had gone to Goodwill and found a nice set of china and a tea pot to use that I didn’t mind if it was dropped by accident.  We had iced tea to drink.  And no party I ever do is ever complete without a Pin the Tail on the Donkey sort of game.  This one was Pin the Wings on Tinkerbell.  I had actually used this Tinkerbell for two parties.  I drew Tinkerbell on a piece of poster board and created wings out of some craft paper and the children were blindfolded and sent on their way to pin the wings on Tinkerbell.

A Rockin’ Birthday Party

One of my oldest daughters favorite birthday parties to date was her rockin’ Hannah Montana party when she turned 10.  Hannah Montana was big 3 years ago.  Probably not so much now, but this party could easily be adjusted to feature whoever the popular artist of the time is.  Her invites were created to look like concert tickets:

A piece of card stock cut into the shape of a concert ticket and glitter glue made these the perfect invites for this party.  If you notice the section, row, and seat are all 10′s which represented it being her 10th birthday.

For food we did pizza rolls and other little appetizer things.  We rented a singing game for the Wii and the girls all got to sing Hannah Montana songs.  If you have a Karaoke machine that would work great too.  And the cake was probably the biggest deal of all.  A guitar shaped cake that I made with the Hannah Montana colors and the logo too.  It’s really one of my favorite cakes to date.  It looked amazing and I hated cutting into it.

A Halloween Theme Party

After having two April birthdays to plan for, having a fall birthday finally was a thrill for me.  My son’s birthday is the day after Halloween.  So when he turned 2 and Halloween fell on a Saturday I knew I had to do a Halloween party for him.  That was a blast and I can see  many more Halloween birthday parties for him.  Of course you don’t HAVE to have this party for a birthday, but for me it just made it more fun.

So the invites were made in the shape of a ghost.

Outside it said, “BOO YOU’RE INVITED”.

Inside it said, “Child’s name here is gonna be age here!  Come join us for a Boo-tastic good time!”

For food we did snacky things and to drink I made a witches brew out of sherbert and sprite.  Just a pint of your favorite sherbert and a bottle of sprite in a bowl with a serving spoon makes for the perfect foamy witches brew.

The major game was my spin on pin the tail on the donkey.  This year it was pin the mouth on the ghost.  A piece of poster board and some markers.  I drew the shape of a ghost and cut out black circles for the mouth.

For the cake I got a ghost shaped cake pan.  And then decorated it according to the instructions.  I went for a cute look since this was for my son’s 2nd birthday.  Perhaps if he were older I would have tried something a little creepier.

We invited everyone to wear their Halloween costumes as well.  My son was a prince that year for Halloween.  His sisters were princesses.

A Construction Party

Every little boy loves tools, right?  Or maybe it’s just mine.  He has been fascinated with tools.  Handy Manny was his favorite show last year so we went with that theme which was so much fun.  While a lot of it was centered around a TV program that might not be popular forever there were a lot of things which could be transformed to fit any construction theme party.

The best game of all was the beanbag toss.  Everyone loved it.  I made a large dump truck on a cardboard box.  I cut the window out and everyone got a chance to toss a beanbag into the window.  The dump truck was set up in my son’s room and played with daily after that for many months.  That’s how much fun it was.

We also had a game of Pin the Glove on Handy Manny.  I drew Handy Manny on poster board and made gloves out of card stock.  Of course if you weren’t going to have a Handy Manny themed party something else you could do is pin the tool belt on the handy man.  Or if you wanted to stick with trucks it could be pin the wheel on the truck.

For the cake we made an excavator cake.  Pound cake, a twinkie, twix, oreo cookie crumbs, some mini donuts, and some well placed twizzlers and other candy made for a really fun cake design.

Aren’t you ready to go digging just from looking at this cake?

Decorations were caution tape, balloons, and yellow and black streamers.

Mickey Mouse Party

Mickey Mouse is timeless.  I loved him as a child and now my son does too.  His birthday this year is one we won’t soon forget.  I hope it’s for the theme and not the start of a 3 day power outage in the middle of his party.  Even without power we managed to have a great party for him.

The games were a Mickey Mouse bean bag toss and pin the hat on Goofy.  On a cardboard box I painted Mickey Mouses face and cut out a hole for his mouth to create the bean bag toss game.  Again, this was a huge hit.  And for pin the hat on Goofy I drew Goofy on a piece of poster board and made his hat out of card stock.  It was so much fun, even in the dark.

For decorations we used basic colors like black, red, and green.  It was so much fun watching my son enjoy characters from my childhood.

Older Children Party Ideas

Now that my oldest two daughters are getting past the kid games and stuff I have had to revamp my birthday parties a little.  This year for my just turned 10 year old daughter we had a sleepover party.  For this I made invitations that were shaped like sleep masks.  Two pieces of felt cut and glued together with a cute ribbon attached and a tag with the party details written on it made for a cute invitation.

At the party we made our own pizzas, painted finger nails, decorated hair clips, and watched a movie.  The girls stayed up very late.  I had to wake them up the next morning for some pancakes for breakfast and to get their stuff together to go home.

My oldest turns 13 this year.  For her birthday we are taking her and a few of her friends to a PG-13 movie.  Why not?  It is after all her first chance to get into a PG-13 movie without her parents.  So for that one the invites were made to look like a movie ticket.  She will have her friends sleepover too.  I imagine they won’t be needing me to butt in too much into what they are doing.  So I haven’t planned many games or activities to do with them.  They’ll be happy to listen to music and play video games and read magazines all night I’m sure.

So these are some of our favorite birthday party ideas!  As long as I plan in advance I have no problem getting everything done that I want to for the special birthday party.  Even though my older two girls are getting beyond the pin the something on the something games they get right in there at the little ones birthdays.  It’s just something that has become such a part of our birthday parties for the kids.

As the children get older they get more and more involved in the planning of their party.  It is after all for them so it needs to be the party that they want.  You don’t need to spend a ton of money either to make amazing parties.  All of the party games I create are from stuff around the house and generally speaking for party decorations and food I don’t spend more than $100 to create a fun and memorable day for my children.