Carnival Themed Birthday Party! Frugal Pize ideas?

**basketballmomma** · 11-05-2006, 12:35 PM

Hello

This is my first post here. My name is beverly and I am sahm of 2 wonderful children. My daughter who is autistic will turn 8 in december and we have never really done a themed party for her. We think we have decided on doing a carnival theme. We have decided to make all the games ourselves such as bean bag toss, ping pong ball throw, ball toss (using water bottles), guess how many is in the jar, face painting, etc. i plan on making cupcakes for the party and barbq hotdogs and have a concession stand. Things seem to be a little tight this year between her birthday an christmas. I would love to hear some frugal ideas for prizes for games and even food!

Thanks so much!

Beverly

**FrugalMomof3** · 11-05-2006, 01:03 PM

Hiya and welcome!

First I would check the dollar stores, the ones near me always have those goodies bag prizes for $1, usually 6-8 a pack and they also have goodie bags as well, I would try the $1 first and see what you can come up with, they have small prizes, stuffed animals, play-dough and other cute things in the kids isle, for girls they have pom poms, stickers, books, journals all $1 each.

Just great advice but a place to start, good luck!

**dwallyfam** · 11-05-2006, 01:26 PM

Also don't forget about serving popcorn, have them make their own cupcake sandwiches for the food. Also if you have freecycle in your area see if anyone has little prizes to give away.

**Neeley** · 11-05-2006, 03:56 PM

I am not sure about where you are but here we have a discount party supply store. They usually have trinket toys (plastic rings, necklaces, pencils etc..) really cheap. Also, inexpensive candy like tootsie rolls and smarties are things kids love.
I agree with the dollar stores, too. You can find a lot there - just think 8 year old and get creative!!
For several years we did a Halloween party in our back yard and normally had between 50-75 kids in attendance. In order to keep costs under control and everyone still leave with a bag full of candy and having had a great time, here are a couple of things we did:
*Bobbing for apples
*Guess the number of gumballs - winner gets the jar of gumballs
*"Needle in a Haystack" - Bought some hay and hid treats all in it. Kids go crazy trying to get the treats. Also hid a special "Needle" (a piece of broom stick cut into a 10 inch peice and painted pale yellow to blend into the hay) The one who finds the needle gets a special prize.
*Karaoke (sp?) - just set up an inexpensive machine (borrowed one) and let the kids come and sing to the group while everything was going on. Provided a lot of laughs and plenty of background music throughout.
*Bubbles - make a homemade batch of bubbles, get some fly swatters and let them make bubbles.
*Let them decorate their own cupcakes. Have some icing, sprinkles, crushed up oreos, etc..
For some other prize ideas, buy a large box of crayons and take two or three crayons and tie together with a culry ribbon and give them a couple of crayons as a trinket prize for a game. You can get around 21 prizes out of a box of 64 crayons. Bakes some cookies and put a couple in snack size baggies and give those as a prize. Homemade silly dough is a fun prize also.
I would buy store brand on sodas, kids for the most part do not know the difference. Also, I do not know how you are about sugar, but koolaid is an enexpensive drink for the concession stand. Kids now are loving frozen pickle juice - you can make frozen pickle juice cups for pretty much free with the juice left in the botom of the jar. Fruit is another good treat to set out. We have set out bowls of various fruits along with chips and cookies. The fruits are most times a bigger hit than the sweet stuff. Nuts- all differnt varieties, boiled, dry roasted, salted, mixed, honey roasted etc.. And what is carnival without someone being dressed up? Have a family member throw together a funny outfit, paint their face and have them walk around and pass out balloons or something - or just have them interact with the kids. We wanted to do this but DS has a HUGE fear of clown like costumes.
I hope you have a great party!!! Let us know ho it goes!!

**basketballmomma** · 11-05-2006, 06:59 PM

Thank you so much for the ideas! I forgot about the pickles and pickle juice.

Thanks again

Beverly

**sunshine** · 11-05-2006, 08:26 PM

Carnivals-- I think of:

Balloons-- so you could give those as prizes. .. perhaps have someone make easy balloon shapes? Google for directions.

Popcorn-- cheap, easy and well liked generally

Corndogs or hot dogs-- also generally pretty cheap

How about cardboard cutouts where the kids can stick their heads in and have their picture taken, then print the picture as a gift. You can make them pretty easily.

**frugalfoster** · 11-05-2006, 10:08 PM

you could have a sucker pull....drill around 25 holes into a piece of wood
(the size of the circumference of the stick on the sucker so that you can set them upright into it)...you could get clever with this and make it the shape of a balloon...then use a marker to paint black on some of the ends of the suckers...let the child pick a sucker and if they pick one with a black end they get to pick another sucker.....kids love this...
they also love a duck pond..... 6 plastic ducks in a rubbermaid dish pan with the numbers one thru six on the bottom of them floating in water.. each child picks a duck and then receives a prize that has a corresponding number on it....usually done with penny candy and then maybe one bigger prize the carnival theme is really great.... I used to volunteer to be the head of the games division for our towns parks and rec department when my children were small.... all kids really liked these two games