Cheap goody bags!

**Daisygirl** · 09-23-2007, 08:20 AM

Rachel's 7th birthday is coming up, and things have spiralled out of control!!!!

I got one of those huge inflatable bouncers for the day really cheap, because the rental business belongs to the wife of one of my co-workers. Anyhow, less than half price. I thought, what great entertainment, I won't have to do anything. We were going to invite about 10 kids, some from the old school and some from the new school. Then suddenly, we realized, we can't really exclude the siblings of the kids on our street with that big thing in our yard. Then we discovered some friends of the family were going to be in the area so their kids got invited which meant to be polite other friends of the family in the same social circle needed to be invited..... you get the picture.

Bottom line: 22-26 KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Usually I spend $3-5 per goodie bag but that is out of the question with so many kids. I need to keep it at $2 max. We are using brown lunchbags that Rachel and Chloe are feverishly decorating with stampers. I am thinking of Halloween Candy, which is dirt cheap right now and stickers. There will be both boys and girls at the party, ranging fin age from 4-8.

Ideas, anyone?

**ilovechocolate** · 09-23-2007, 08:42 AM

You can get cute pencils at dollar stores 8 or 10 for a dollar.

In fact, if you go to some dollar stores, you can find some cute but cheap stuff.

If you have time, can you go online at someplace like Oriental Trading Company? It has tons of stuff.

**Granola** · 09-23-2007, 09:03 AM

Homemade kettle corn- just make popcorn with a little salt and a little sugar right before you take it out of the pan. Stick it in a bag with a halloween ribbon.

**Daisygirl** · 09-23-2007, 09:07 AM

Oooh! Great ideas! And the kettle corn will take up a lot of space!

The dollar store will be my first stop -- unfortunately there is no time to get stuff on line, there are also things sold in lots on Ebay that would be great, but the party is Saturday.

**mommy4ever** · 09-23-2007, 09:42 AM

Just a thought.

SInce not ALL the kids can be jumping at the same time. Is there going to be a table or 2 outside?

My party favors are often a craft we make. Here we can get frames at the $store 2/$1. I get a couple bottles of colored craft paint, pink, blue purple, and red. (whatever), some cheap paint brushes. Some dollar store beads and maybe a few stickers. And a bottle of glue.

Then the kids paint their frames, decorate them, and take them home. Truly I hate gift bags as it's all junk in there. If there's time, I'm make a point to take a picture of each, get emails from parents and send the full size picture to them if they want to print it they can. Some paint their names on them, and decorate. Save it and use it to give to mom or dad for the next holiday, christmas mothers day, etc.

Just a thought.

**Jaded** · 09-23-2007, 12:17 PM

I'm all for the painting idea. They can paint a picture of the party.

**Edna_E** · 09-23-2007, 04:45 PM

Ok, this may be too late, but is it really necessary to have toys in goodie bags? Can't you put cookies, little boxes of raisins, etc.?

**ravenmaniac** · 09-23-2007, 05:18 PM

All those ideas are wonderful. The dollar store would be my stop. After all, with all the fun in the bouncy thing some candy and a pencil in a nicely decorated bag is all they will need.

**Daisygirl** · 09-23-2007, 06:43 PM

Okay, spent $20 at the $ store and got:

18 prism viewers
30 slimy bugs
20 jeweled rings
25 pencils
42 hair accessories
piles of candy
25 bouncy balls that look like eyeballs
30 Mardi gras necklaces
A bag of 100 Disney stickers
22 clickety clackety things

So I am going to make boy bags and girl bags (boy bags heavy on the bugs, girl bags heavy on the hair stuff)

For the craft I got magnetic sheets and we will make fridge magnets. I am cutting out the letter of the child's first name and then he/ she can decorate it with the miscellaneous glue, beads and glitter that I have kicking around.

**amecoy75002** · 09-23-2007, 08:20 PM

I have a really dumb question - why do you have to give out goody bags?

**Daisygirl** · 09-25-2007, 05:37 AM

Not a dumb question at all. I guess it is just a traditional "Thanks for coming to the party." All the parties my girls go to send them home. When someone is bringing your child a gift, I guess it is just the current trend to send goodie bags.

**Neeley** · 09-25-2007, 10:29 AM

When I was little my mom always sent goodie bags home with all of my guests as a thank you gift. We have also always done it with our kids as well.

Another thing we did was take a picture of our child with each guest and made personalized thank you cards with them. After the party we developed the pictures, took blank cards that were made to hold a photo(little slits in them to hold a photo), had our child write his/her thank you message and mailed them out.

**mommy4ever** · 09-25-2007, 03:30 PM

We don't often do treat bags. We do a craft kids take home. I stopped when the first words out of the kids mouths are "What are we getting?" The point is to celebrate a birthday, not get something for coming. We never ask for gifts, if they insist fine, if they don't bring that's fine, too. I dislike the "gimmes". I never got treat bags, the treat was the party! Cake and ice cream, games and lots of fun. Parties can be costly, and kids unappreciative of their treat bags. I've watched kids throw certain items in the garbage, so i just quit doing them. I do plan a craft. We've done the picture frames I mentioned, we did paperbag scrapbooks. I've had them do a 15 foot banner in the back yard. Brought them to a museum and they made home made icecream and yarn dolls. Those parties are the ones my kids remember, and their friends remember. I remember the one time, I was getting pictured developped for something for the kids, and parents were calling demandig to know when the kids were getting their treats. It just soured everything.

Now my 2 oldest have a couple friends maybe go to a movie, and it's a sleep over. There's a cake. Done. DS actually just brought a buddy camping instead. DD8 is kinda there, but she still likes the party. DD3 is easy, she likes to have a cake! Doesn't matter if there's anyone invited, just a cake

She hasn't really been toa party that she remembers, so it's still quite simple.

I just hate that everyone has to do so much to get approval for a child's party. I miss the simple days. Kids over, cake, some party games a little candy and chips. And it was done. not the stress for the perfect party.

Sorry to highjack.

**Daisygirl** · 09-27-2007, 05:47 AM

Not hijacking -- I do agree with several of our points. One year we threw a cat's birthday party for our cat, and the "gifts" were a package of petfood, which my daughter later donated to the humane society. That was pretty fun too.

I am sorry you have had the awful experience of ungrateful guests. We have been lucky enough never to have that. Thanks for your input.

**AngelB** · 09-27-2007, 08:22 PM

last weekend we had my 10y.o. daughter's party. She wanted camping, so I took her, 3 friends, 1 cousin, and 1 aunt as back up in case anyone needed to go home in the middle of the night etc, to a local campground and we tent camped. It was great. For each of the girls I got a flashlight 2/$3 including batteries, and $1 water bottles. It was awesome, we did foil dinners, smores and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I would fully reccomend it, I felt like the flashlights and water bottles were better than goodie bags. I throw all that stuff away and can't stand spending my money on it. But I am just that way. I read once about creating experiences instead of things for them. I've really tried to lean toward unique experinces for the kids, even if it means a smaller group.