Kids party on a budget

Nearly 2 weeks ago, Lucky celebrated her 8th birthday in a historical way. And nearly 3 weeks ago, we decided to do a birthday party. But even before I came to a conclusion to do a birthday party, i was counting every single penny I'll be spending  to host a party.

Usually we hold a birthday party at a venue since a flat is quite small to hold all of Lucky's friend. I never had a budget but this year I had to tighten my belt.

Hiring a venue is expensive and Lucky only asked to do a birthday party if we can afford it. I only wanted to spend £175 on her whole birthday including presents! But the venues I wanted were in and around that prize excluding her presents. So venue will be a no. It had to be at home and with 11 kids, we thought it'll be a tight squeeze. We can't use our balcony as we are right at the top on the 6th floor so for  safety issues tag is a no go. So  rearranged the living room area in a way that gave us more space.

2nd-  money. I accounted for everything. From party poppers to cakes. Lucky didn't want a big fancy cake but instead wanted cake pops so thankfully that reduced the cost vastly. We had 20 cake pops for £40 instead of laying £60. We brought  2 packs of £1 fairy cakes for our cakes and put them on a £8 castle cupcake stand which came with decorations and cases. We had lots of cutleries, party bags and candles leftover from previous parties so we used them. We brought balloons, table cloth and banner from the pound shop. Everything else was homemade I.e pictures printed from internet and coloured ourselves, homemade invitations.  Food and snacks were from Sainsbury's including homemade made crudités.

3rd - games. As the theme was history, we tried to keep it that way. So we decorated goblets and did flower crowns which were also party favours (saved on buying any party bag fillers). We played Pin the Crown where we had to pin a crown(drawn by Lucky) on a large photo of her (which we already had). We played apple bobbing and the apples they caught was also a party bag filler. We also played eat the chocolate bites where the treated were on a piece of string and the kids had to catch the treats using their moth only. Of course here was lots of dancing and singing too! Money was just spent on goblets, things to build our own flower crowns and decorations for goblets!

The kids had a Blast and no one complained (except when they didn't want to leave). It was an important lesson to us as parents as it taught us that you don't need to splash out a huge amount of parties for your kids to have fun. Kids will have fun with anything! It doesn't matter if the food costs £1 or the cake wasn't traditional, kids just want to have fun regardless of money and space!