It is my littlest's birthday in just under two weeks time! Hard to believe but she's going to be two... yikes! Where did the time go?
Anyway, this guest post from Air Inflatables, a leading UK bouncy castle sales specialist, has come at a good time as it has five fun & affordable children's party ideas.
Children love to be creative and it’s hard when you’re on a
budget to provide them with activities to ensure they have fun at the party,
it’s particularly difficult to keep a group of children entertained for extended
periods of time too – that’s where we come in!
Here are 5 creative yet affordable ideas to keep your
children entertained at their party:
Egg Decoration
Egg decoration is an old favourite that doesn’t need to be
confined to Easter! It’s simple and can be very cheap too. You need a pack of
eggs - free range eggs are bigger and better quality but if your budget is
tight then buy a pack of chef’s eggs from the supermarket, they’re very cheap
and come in large quantities! Then you need to hard boil the eggs; pop them in
a pan of cool water with a tablespoon of vinegar and half a teaspoon of salt in
and gently bring them to the boil (this will help to avoid cracking) then boil
them for around 2 minutes, take off the heat, cover and leave for approximately
12-15 minutes. Then remove the eggs from the pan and place in a bowl of ice
water to cool down, cover in a container and when they’ve cooled pop them in
the fridge ready for the party. All you need now are some paints, maybe some
simple colours for hair and eyes, and then get the kids to paint the eggs, this
could be themselves a superhero or a princess - the possibilities are endless!
Make your own pizza
Another fun food favourite - why not get a few readymade
pizza bases from the supermarket , these shouldn’t be much more than 1 or 2 pounds
and as well as great value they also come with cooking instructions on the back
of the pack. Spread the base with a basic sauce; we recommend passata for a
tomato sauce but you could use barbeque or even pesto. Then cover with the
toppings you desire, this could be ham, pepperoni, mushrooms or mozzarella. You
can literally let the kid’s imaginations run wild with this activity and you
don’t need to worry about lunch either as they have arranged it for you!
Pot a plant
We love this idea, all you need is a bag of soil (or soil
from the garden) a pack of plastic party cups and some seeds. For our example
we’ve picked a French breakfast radish which look great and don’t need
transferring to a garden. Get your plastic cup and fill it with soil, leave an
inch space at the top to avoid overflow then place a radish seed a half inch
deep. Let the children know to water the plants a little every couple of days (not
to put too much in) and after around 30 days the radish should poke out from
the soil and be ready to eat - easy, simple and fun!
Bouncy castles
Bouncy castles can seem to be a more expensive item at a
party but we’ve found that if you have a search of your local dealers you can
pick them up from as little as £45 for a couple of hours or £50 for the day
which is a huge bargain considering the amount of time the children will spend
on it. We think that a couple of hours is great for working up and appetite for
lunch or towards the end of the party so they are ready to relax in front of a
film before their parents pick them up.
Pencil Stationery
Another great arts and crafts activity is to buy a big pack
of pencils online, it’s really simple to get bulk packs and they aren’t too
pricey either (24 pencils for £2 on eBay), then get a used plastic bottle and
some PVA glue, spread the glue over the bottle and stick the pencils to it with
the rubbers on the bottom and the points facing upwards (make sure they’re not
sharp!) then leave the pots to dry and they can now be used as stationary
holders. This is a really handy activity that gets the children a useful gift
and may even get them interested in their school work!
That’s our ideas for some fun and affordable children’s
party ideas; the best part of it is that you don’t even need to make party bags
as they’ve made their own gifts during the day! Even though you may be faced
with a lot of clearing up, we think these activities are great, but we’d also
like to hear what affordable, fun and creative ideas you have too so please
leave any comments below.
Watch this space to see what we did in the Glasgow Mummy house for the littlest's birthday :-)
