5 Secrets For Easy Festive Birthday Party Planning

It’s no secret that I love party planning. I start conjuring up party themes and ideas months before my kids’ birthdays. Tommy isn’t even 6 months old and I’ve got his 1st birthday party theme all set. Over the years, I’ve come up with a few ways to make fun, festive birthday parties easier. Hopefully they help in your party planning too! 

1. Create a bin of reusable party supplies: Party supplies can get expensive, but there are so many things you can use year after year if you plan right. When you pick a theme for the party, try and get things that match the theme, but are neutral enough that you can use them again. With two girls, we have an entire box of pink party supplies. I end us using things in the box for almost every birthday party, Valentine’s Day parties, tea parties etc. I also have a bin of primary color party supplies. For this year’s “Rainbow 5th birthday” I didn’t have to buy hardly anything – I just used all the primary supplies with some added paper products in the rainbow theme. We always use Birthday Express for the themed supplies – they have every theme you can imagine and their prices are great (sign up for their newsletter and you get a ton of coupons). 

If you’ve been to a party at my house, chances are you’ve seen these three items. I use them at almost every party. I got them from Smash Cake & Co (one of my favorite party sites) for Alex’s 1st birthday party. 

Things like paper medallions and pennant bunting, can be used over and over again. Just remember to save what can be reused and try to fit whatever you can into next year’s theme!

Even goodie bags. Chances are you are not going to use the whole pack, or if you buy a larger quantity, you’ll save money. When I was making Maggie’s goodie bags this year, I realized that I had an assortment of leftover paper bags from a few different parties. Instead of buying new bags, I stuck a rainbow sticker on all the bags (her party theme as rainbows) and turned all our old leftover bags into “matching” rainbow bags with our spending any money. 

For more details on the most recent party theme I planned, Maggie’s Rainbow Party, click here. 

2. Places to Have the Party: You can have the party out, but don’t necessarily have to have it somewhere that hosts birthday parties. Maggie’s birthday is in the middle of the winter and we don’t have the space to host a party for her friends in our house. Many of the places I looked into for parties were very expensive. Then I got to thinking of places that would be a lot of fun, but a lot less costly. We’ve had parties at Chick-fil-a and at local pizzeria. I bought the food there and brought everything else from home. Kids are more easily entertained than you might think. Often they just want to run around, play and eat cake. Another idea for having the party out, is to “team up” with another parent who has a child with a birthday around the same time. Two years in a row, Maggie has had her birthday party with one of her best pals – their birthdays are a few weeks apart. It saves money and also saves time. The other mom and I split up all the party planning duties. 

3. Customize store bought cupcakes: I am not a baker, but I also don’t like spending a ton of money on fancy cupcakes. I discovered that our local grocery store (and most grocery stores I have asked) will customize their store bought cupcakes to whatever color frosting and sprinkles you’d like. They usually only need a day or 2 notice. At our local bakery they are about $7 a dozen, come ready to go and match the party theme. If you want to go a step farther, you can make your own cupcake toppers: print free printable toppers online, cut them out and tape to a toothpick. 

4. Giant Number Balloons: Instead of buying tons of balloons, try one big balloon for the number they are turning. They are fun for the birthday morning and make great party decor. They are really big and totally replace getting a lot of balloons! I order them on Amazon.

5. Easy, personalized thank you cards: I think thank you cards are important to send and I also think it’s great if you can involve the kids in thanking their friends. This year, we made thank you cards from Minted with Maggie’s picture on them. There was a fun option to add a party hat on her head! We thought having her photo on them would let the kids receiving the thank you cards quickly recognize who it was from. The front said “Thank you” and her name. Inside, instead of writing a note about what the gift was, Maggie drew pictures of the gifts. She wrote each child’s name inside, but instead of me writing the note or having her attempt (even just the names were a challenge!) we opted for drawings. It was fun for her and I think more fun for the kids receiving the notes.