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

Tip of the Day

Don't be afraid to ask guests to help with food. Most are happy to help out in some way.

Mermaid Baby Shower for under $75

I am going to start out with not a birthday shower, but a baby shower. I planned a baby shower for my sister, she loves ocean creatures. So naturally we had an ocean theme. Here is a break down of what we did.

Decorations Total cost $15

Decorations were very simple. I took green and blue streamers, glued little ocean creature confetti, I found on clearance at Party City, and taped them to the ceiling. To look like ocean waves. Total cost about $3.

I also bought twirly decorations to hang from the ceiling 3 for $2.50.

For my centerpiece, I made a simple diaper cake. I used diapers that were already given to my sister. Three bottles for the center of the cake, which I already had since I have a one year old. I bought the ribbon at Michaels for $3.99. I found a very Cute My First Mermaid Doll at Wal-Mart for $2.99 for the cake topper. And I decorated it with the same confetti I used for the streamers, $1 a package. I also bought a cake board for about $1 and covered it with blue tissue paper for the base. Total cost on diaper cake: Less than $10.

 One last thing I did was I bought favor boxes that look like treasure chests and placed them around the living room. I used these as favors at the end of the party and included them in the favor budget.

Food Total cost $30

• For food I made little sushi rolls out of bread, tuna, cucumber and carrots. I made some with tuna and some without. Here is the recipe I used from Happy Little Bento. These sandwiches cost about $5 to make, but they were a lot of work. I put the sandwiches on teal plastic trays that I bought for a $1 a piece. If I were to do a party like this again, I would use tortillas instead. I arranged to have guests bring fruit, vegies, and spinach dip.
• For beverages I provided, Tropricana juice 2 cartons at $1 a piece, coffee and iced tea which I already have in the house.
• For the cake I adapted a mermaid cake I found at Family Fun to look like a pregnant mermaid, by using a 6" round cake cut in half. I find most of my cakes at Family Fun, they are pretty simple and they look great. I used 3 box cakes, three batches of frosting, and 4 packages of Neco candy.  To get the skin color for the mermaid, I added one drop each of red and green food color until I got the shade I wanted. The base is a cardboard box, I had laying around the house covered with a dollar store table cloth. Cake total: Less than $10.
• I bought generic heavy duty paper plates and clear plastic cups for the refreshments (about $5). I bought a ocean themed table cloth and desert plates and napkins ($3.50 for table cloth and $5 for plates and napkins) for cake. I added confetti around cake and on table.

Games and Favors/Door Prizes Total $27

• I downloaded a fun ocean play list onto my smart phone. Absolutely free. The music set the mood and many people commented on the songs I pick.

1. Yellow Submarine (The Beatles)
2. Sea Cruise (Frankie Ford)
3. Under the Sea (Little Mermaid)
4. Les Poissons (Little Mermaid)
5. Baby Beluga (Raffi)
6. Come Sail Away (Styx, Finding Nemo)
7. Octopus's Garden (The Beatles)
8. Hymn of the Sea (Titanic)

• All the games I found here. We did four games. First we played baby bingo (this game I did purchase for $2). 
• Second game was guess the tummy size. Each guest took an amount of toilet paper they thought would go around the mom's stomach. The person who was closest won.
• Third, we took paper plates put them on our head and drew a baby with a color crayon. The mother got to pick her favorite for the winner.
• Fourth, we wrote the baby's name down on a index card. Each guest searched their purses for an item that started out with each letter of the baby's name. This game was great. It was so much fun to see all the junk woman carry in their purses. 
• Other than the $2 I spent on the bingo, I didn't spend anything on games, since I used things I just had around the house.
• We also had diaper raffle. Each guest was told to bring a package of diapers or wipes (if it was the gift it still counted) to have their name entered to win a door prize. The door prize was $10 and consisted of little things, I picked up, chocolates, pens, lotion, notepads, magnets. This was wildly successful, every guest brought diapers or wipes.
• The prizes for the games were $1 notepads/magnets, I picked up at Michaels. Total $5
• I also filled the little treasure boxes with Swedish fish, which I gave out to the young girls who came with their mothers. This was $10.