Birthday parties can easily break the bank, especially if you end up inviting a lot of guests. For the price of one digital scrapbook kit and some printer supplies, you can make your own invitations, thank you cards, party favors, and even decorations. My daughter is turning 13 in a few days and we happen to have a lot of teenage girls in our neighborhood so we had 19 girls over for her party on Friday night. Yes, I said nineteen.
My daughter decided on a camping theme so we went digi shopping for a camping related kit and fell in love with this one by Fruit LoOp Sally and Kaye Winiecki at Pickleberry Pop.
I made party invitations
and these cute party favors
I simply measured the width of the ziploc sandwich bag and made my canvas that wide. Then I made it tall enough that I could fold over the printed paper to form a treat bag topper. I was inspired by Shabby Princess' wonderful treat pack products. We filled the bags with Golden Grahams cereal, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips. The text says:
Thanks for coming to my party! Hope we can have s'more fun sometime soon!
My daughter also used this kit to make signs for our front door and fence to let the guests know to head straight to the back yard.
Then we borrowed a fire bowl and a bunch of camping chairs to set up in our backyard.
I think it is so cool that my daughter wanted us at her party. She printed out an invitation for me and one for her Dad so we would be sure to feel welcome. :) It's a good thing that Dad got to be there because I wouldn't have wanted to be in charge of the fire!
Besides the cost of 1 digital kit and some firewood, the only real expense was for the food. We thought about roasting hot dogs or even cooking dutch oven meals, but we opted to blow a wad on having someone else do the food. Totally worth it! Especially with that many guests. It made the whole event so much nicer for me and the food was really tasty.
Presents were opened, and then the girls played a card game called Mafia, during which it got so loud that I hoped none of my neighbors would call the police thinking that a bunch of girls were truly being tortured in my back yard. Lots of shrieking and screaming. LOL!
Then we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. We found GINORMOUS marshmallows at the Mexican market in Albuquerque and we packed them all the way home to Utah just for this occasion. We also had the traditional large marshmallows in case anyone didn't want the super sized ones. They all wanted the super sized ones.
It was a great party and all the girls seemed to really enjoy it. We gave out these bandanas to all the girls and also gave them each a glowing necklace when it got dark.
I just can't believe my baby is going to be a teenager! She sure is a neat girl and I love her so much!
Don't be afraid to use digital scrapbook supplies for personal cards and invitations. You can save a lot of money and have a lot more options to really customize the look of your party. You know what else is cool? You can use the same kit to scrapbook the whole thing!
