My most recent client was for a VIP. The one and only Kaden Matthew Resch’s 6th birthday. He asked for a “real” birthday party with his friends. Apparently his 5th birthday at Disney was fake… but I understood what he meant. He wanted his school and neighborhood friends to come to his house and play. So the invites to 20+ kids went out. I chose to send a invite via text message. I’ve never really been big on spending money on invitations. One of the moms said she really liked it because it was on her phone and easy to just add to her handheld calendar opposed to having to find the invite amongst all the other stuff sitting on her counters.
The theme of the party was requested to be Super Mario Brothers. I was totally down because I LOVE a theme. It honestly makes your life so much easier when planning a party and choosing decor. So the first thing I did was jump on Pinterest and created a board for inspiration. I can’t stress enough how much you should not try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to party decor. It’s been done before and probably better than what you can imagine, so use it, that’s why the site was created. If you are unfamiliar, brace yourself because you will get sucked in and you will be amazed on all the DIY’s you will start planning…
With my inspiration board created I started going thourgh my craft bins and looking around the house for what could be reused. Then I started my search for CHEAP supplies. I made many trips to the dollar store. Surely you can find party supplies and items online or in the stores but, you can also make them for most likely half the price AND it’s a fun activity for the family. Just ask Matt how much he loves it. 🙂
I bought white paper plates and painted them gold for the game coins, balloons for the star characters that I painted black eyes on, blue table covers to act as the sky wall, poster board for the clouds, Styrofoam cake separators to be the heads of the piranha plants, picture boxes for the punching blocks and PVC pipes to act as the game tunnels that were used in multiple locations. The impact in the space was exactly what I envisioned and it acted as a great picture backdrop.
The obvious activity for the kiddos was for them to play video games. So, we set up a few TV’s and game stations and let them at it. Make sure to ask friends and family if you can borrow stuff too if needed. No need to go buy games or extra controllers when there are plenty of neighbors that will most likely be happy to help out.
I couldn’t just let them sit in front of the TV the whole party so we also set up a “Bob-omb” water gun obstacle challange. Bobombs are bombs in the game that we created by blowing up 125 black balloons (another FUN activity for Matt) and painted white eyes on. These little suckers made the morning a little stressful because they all popped when trying to secure them to the grass. Great tip I received after would be to attach the balloons to a small paper plate and then pin that to the grass. We came up with a great plan B though and invited the parents to throw the balloons at the kids. Matt said this ended up being more fun anyways. Which is obvious in the pic below of him getting the bday boy. Of course the fun then continued into the pool. Always be prepared for kids that may have forgotten a swim suit and then just let them have fun.
We realized that we hadn’t done cake and instead of making them all get out of the pool, we brought the cupcakes to them. We are very fortunate to have a close friend Nikki Major of “Madi Cakes” who is a cake artist and has done all the cakes for our important celebrations. She made these mushrooms that were delicious and EASY CLEAN UP!
So let’s talk goodie bags and take aways. If you have ever made goodie bags you realize how expensive they can be to fill with goodies. So, think about how you can reuse some of your other party supplies to accomplish this tasks. I’m pretty proud that I thought to fill the gold coins that were used as decor with some treats. I also made sure that each kids took the water gun home they used for the Bobomb challange, the themed cup they drank out of all day and the hat or crown they all got upon arrival. Ultimatly, these ideas provided decor, activities, take aways AND helped with clean up! Brillant, right?
Don’t forgot about the parents! We set up a old school Nintendo station for them to play and made sure to have fun food, beverages and sweets for them to take away too.
All in all, we had a very happy birthday boy and to me a satisfied client too! One last little nugget… Don’t throw away all your decor if it can be used again. Check out Kaden’s new room.
Leave a Reply