~Birthday Week~ Food

     Thanks to the wonderful Hour and a half p90x yoga that was on my schedule yesterday and doing alittle packing I was unable to do a post, but have no fear I will still be able to cover all the basics money saving tips for birthday parties! Today I want to talk about food, because if you have a family like mine food is all important! Food can also be the easiest or the hardest thing to do at your party. There is 2 ways you can do food at a party, you can have basic party food that everyone loves OR you can theme your food to your party.  For example at my daughters birthday last year we did Pink Poodles in Paris, and we had it done like a little bistro with finger sandwiches, fruit, and lots of sweets

No matter which direction you go with the food themed or non there is always a couple rules I follow. 1. Always make it yourself instead of buying it Ex. cupcakes, the cake, brownies, fruit trays or salads etc. I do not mean make 12 pizzas if that is the main food you will be feeding people, or do homemade nugget trays, you can if you want but I opt out. 2. Ask family members if they would like to make or buy anything, usually if it is a grandparent they are more than obliged to help out. 3. Do not go overboard!!! I always like to do a big item (pizza, nugget trays, sandwiches, sub, etc.) Pretzels or chips, fruit, and then a dessert, this might even sound like too much for the party you are doing but that leads us to my next rule 4. Plan your food to the time & style on your event ex. tea-party theme before or after lunch (tea-sandwiches, little cookies) casual any time of the day (pizza & chips). I always have my parties at lunch time, so that is why I serve as much as I do. 

     So that is the basics I use when I am getting my food ready for my parties its a simple yet complex thing, as always I love comments and emails so if you need to know anything more in depth please let me know! 

~Birthday Week~ Easy & Affordable Party Favors & Flubber Tutorial

   


     So it is Day 2 of my Birthday Party on a budget and today we are talking about party favors. You always want to make sure your little hero's friends go home with something, especially since they were kind enough to bring a gift and to come and spend some time with your hero's. Sometimes party favors can get expensive and if your child is old enough and wants to help you plan sometimes their ideas and wants for favors can add up and get a little over budget. Have no fear though, you can do a really awesome party favor bag and spend minimal money.

How to Save 

1. Make your own favors, you get more for less and your little hero's can help you make it and when they give it to their friends it will make them feel good to know the gift is really coming from them.There is a million things you can make, and with Pinterest the possibilities are endless. 
2. The dollar store is your friend, you can find hundreds of things for $1 and most of the time get them in bulk. 
3. Buy plain, what do I mean by that you ask? Instead of buying theme items from party stores go to Walmart and get their .97c table cloths and other party supplies in your theme color(s). You can get solid color bags from Walmart 3/.50c If your having a party for a small group you can also get really cool theme cups from Walmart for .88c like the one I have pictured at the top of the page.

     So now that you have some of my tips for buying party favor items lets look at the party favor cups I made for my son and how to make some slime/flubber to put in your next birthday party favor bag 

     My favors include homemade flubber/slime, 3 crayons, a magic towel, and gummies. I bought a 50 pack of crayons from the dollar store and took out all the good colors and divided them equally into the cups, I then had my daughter help me make the gak/flubber and put them in little storage containers I got at the dollar store 10/$1. They were having a blowout at our dollar store and I got the magic bath towels 3/$1 and then I went and bought a box of superhero gummies at Walmart for $2. The most expensive thing in my favors were the cups and they were .88c a piece, but I had saved so much with y other supplies I had the money to spare. It cost me around $2 a child to make the favor cups, not bad, If I would have followed my own rule and bought the solid bags I would have spent $1! So you see you can do awesome favors for really cheap and make them look like you spent a million bucks!

Gak/flubber/slime 

• Box of Borax
• 8oz glue (2 pack of 4oz at dollar store works awesome!) 
• Small containers for gak (10/$1 at dollar store) 
• 1/2C warm water
• food coloring 

1. Add glue into a mixing bowl, then fill empty glue bottles with warm water, place top back on, shake and then add to glue.
2. Add 15-20 drops of your choice color food coloring and mix.
3. Take half a cup warm water and add 1 tsp. of borax mix and then add to glue mix. Mix with spoon until stringy then use hands to mix. It will take about 3 minutes for gak to form.
   
4. Portion out your gak/slime into your container and then add the lid
5. Label your container with whatever you want to call it. I used a sharpie marker and wrote directly on the container, you can also buy the sticker labels from the dollar store and make a peel and stick label.
6. Assemble it into your favor bag and your done! 

     I hope this tutorial gave you some good ideas on how to save a little money on your favors, while also making it look like you didn't scimp on them. Stay tuned for the rest of the week and get more money saving tutorials and ideas! If you have any questions feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email!