Bug Birthday Party For under $50

I did this party for my middle child's 5th birthday. He loves bugs, but he is scared of spiders. He will pick up every bug. He is the one I call to put the bugs outside.  But if he sees a spider, he will call for me to kill it for him.

You can do this party for a boy or a girl. For this party I did not do paper invitations. I just made a event on facebook.

Decorations  Total cost $6.25

•  I bought sparkly foam bug stickers on clearance at Wal-Mart for $3 and some plain foam bug stickers for $2. I used these stickers to decorate everything.
• I also got some green streamers from Wal-Mart for $1.25. However later on, I did find streamers at Party City for only $0.78. Doesn't it always happen? You find what you need for cheaper after you need it. I hung these streamers, placing periodic sparkley foam stickers of the streamer,  on the ceiling in the living room and dining area, to look like bugs in the grass. As a side note, as I did this, my oldest says to me, "If we have an ocean party, we can hang blue streamers on the ceiling." and that is how I got the idea for the Mermaid party.
• I made a door sign on my Create a Card program, with cute bugs in grass, which read "Welcome to our garden"

Food and Paper Goods Total cost:$20

• For the table cloth, plates, napkins and plates, I bought plain green and decorated them with the foam stickers I bought. I let my 5 year old decorate the cups. He just loves helping with his parties. It's something special we share. Total cost for paper goods: $6
• I made Dirt and Worms for the kids. Recipe found here. I bought clear plastic cups to put the "dirt" in a clear plastic cup for effect. This recipe cost about $7 including the cups.
• For the cake I made a bee hive cake I found on Family Fun. There are cute little bee cookies that go with it. This cake looks complicated, but it was actually quite simple. The cake only took one cake mix and 2 batches of homemade frosting, dyed yellow. All you have to do is heat up the frosting in the microwave and pour it over the cake. I made the cookies with a simple sugar cookie recipe. I just made drop cookies. After the cookies were cooled, I cut them with a biscuit cutter to make them perfectly round. I displayed the cake on a cake plate. I set it on a crystal platter. I put bee cookies around and underneath the cake. I topped the cake with a giant bee I found at the dollar store. Total cost for cake and cookies: $6
• I did not do ice cream or any other snacks, because we had pudding, cookies and cake. They way it worked was the kids had the pudding and the adults had the cookies.  If you wanted to have more snacks, the classic "ants on a log" (peanut butter in celery sticks, topped with raisins) would be perfect.
• We just had soda for drinks. 

Games and Favors Cost approximately $20 

• When everyone arrived, they received a pair of bug antenna. I made these by hot gluing two pipe cleaners to a plastic headband (4 for $1 at dollar store), then I hot glued pom poms to the top of the pipe cleaners.   Total cost $5
• I down load the Disney Song "Ugly  Bug Ball" on my smart phone, which I played during all the games.
• I found little and big plastic bugs at the dollar store, which I used for games and favors In all about $10. I bought little green bags for the kids to keep there bugs in, 8 for $1 at Wal-Mart.
• I really wanted to have the kids search for plastic bugs out in the yard, but we were rained out, so I had to improvise. 
• Game 1: I put easter grass in two plastic bins. In the grass I hid pieces of the Cooties game. I split the kids into 2 groups and the played a relay race. The kids had find a piece in the grass and put together the cootie bug one piece at a time. So the first child found the body, then the next found the head and so on. The first team to finish the bug one.
• Game 2: My 5 year old really wanted to buy butterfly nets (from the dollar store) for his party, so I had to come up with a game to incorporate them. This is what I came up with. Still in teams, one child held the butterfly net while the other children took turns throwing the big bugs into the net. The team that got the most bugs into the nets won. 
• Game 3: We did a caterpillar crawl. I ripped up green construction paper into small strips, which I called leaves. Still in teams, the kids took turns scooting down to the leaves in a sleeping bag. They had to make sure to keep the sleeping bags as they went down to the leaves. Once they reached the leaves I let them stand and carry the sleeping bag to their team mate. This first team to all get the leaves won. This game was hilarious.
• After every game I gave each child a bug to put into their bag.

My youngest modeling the antenna