Zach was very into sharks this year. He wanted a shark swimming party at the "pirate ship pool" in Deadwood (The Lodge). I called to set up a party expecting to rent a conference room for around $40 or pay a price per head for swimmers. It turns out swimming is free, conference rooms are a price per head of something ridiculous like $8.50 starting at 1 year old even without catering. There were no hotel rooms available for the night either (at $100-120 a night). So I asked about just bringing a cake. The lady said no cake poolside. Well then we won't bring cake, we will just swim. Swimming is free. SO here is how I met that challenge and threw an extremely cheap & highly successful Shark Birthday Party.....
Once again my birthday party budget including decorations, invitations, cake, food, entertainment & present is $150. It can be done. This one fell extremely under budget!!!
I research games, decorations, invitation, food and cake ahead of time on the web, blogs, Pinterest & throughout my own stock of ideas, plans and curriculum.
I always come up with 1-2 hours of activities based on the boys' chosen party theme and location. We had just had a Watiki waterpark birthday weeks before for Luke's birthday, so I pushed Zach to choose a different location and named off a few places. He was adamant about this location and this theme. Two things he wanted for decorations were a shark photo prop that looked like you were being eaten & shark fin cupcake toothpicks. I didn't have enough budget or time at that point to do an Oriental Trading or Birthday Express order. Plus they do cost a little bit of money. I much rather design and print or find freebie printables on line. That is what I did for this entire birthday!!!!!
1st the invitations:
I had seen these in many party blogs and used a free template to design them changing names and dates to accommodate. Before the boys reach kindergarten I invite mainly neighbors and family friends. Their Kindergarten year when they are just establishing school friends & when I do not know their parents well enough to know last names and addresses, I follow school policy for handing out invites at school & send enough for the entire class!!! This is the ONLY year I do this. I did also invite 2 friends of the family.
With this party being in Deadwood, 25 miles away, I figured we would have low numbers. I am always gambling with my favors as I get them on clearance for up to a year ahead of time once I know what theme the boys are shooting for. And once they pick a theme, they stick with it, there is no changing their minds!
Some of the parents sat at the slots & tables during the party, not a bad idea really.
I had 3 of his classmates, one of our former preschoolers, two neighbor boys, one friend of the family just the kindergartner and one entire family of friends RSVP ahead of time. This put me at 13 kids including my 3 oldest. Perfect! 12 favors and 1 birthday boy. WELL..... of course a couple unexpected siblings, a couple who didn't RSVP and family friends with 4 kids who last minute have a schedule change and can make it, all show up. Now we are at 20 kids!!!! So, I quickly divided the favors out a little further and made it work. Swimming was the main fun.
Swimming was so much fun we didn't even play "Shark Says" or "Shark, Minnow" or "shark tag" or "Catch the Shark". They had fun with the small slide, the fountains, the lillypads, the pirate ship & the basketball hoop.
Now I bet I could have snuck in a snack time for them, we had done it before not knowing there was no food allowed, but I didn't want to push my luck where we had paid absolutely nothing for entrance. SO that was a bit challenging as so much fun of planning a party is the food! What I did do was bring in:
Bottled Sea Water (with shark labels printed on cardstock, cut and taped on).
Shark Bait: Rainbow Goldfish Craskers
Fish Food: I had actually planned on the bait being gummy worms & the fish food being the goldfish crackers, but somehow the worms didn't make it to the party.
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| This is pretty much what the cupcakes looked like. I guess I didn't get a shot of them. We had plain blue cupcake liners though & much much more vibrant blue frosting piled high. |
and printed and cutout and assembled cardstock cupcake boxes for each child. Each had a cut out shark fin toothpick in it per birthday boy request. We handed these out as they were leaving and told them they couldn't eat them in the pool room but at home instead. Everyone was pleased with this and it worked out well.
For the loot I had cut out SHARK JAWS from paper plates...
And had fish diving sticks, pirate key-chains, stickers & a homemade "drop the shark in the tank" game consisting of a shark decorated clothes pin with a fin and a blue cupcake liner to be placed on the floor by the child's foot. The object was to drop the shark into the cupcake liner from a standing position or atop a chair for a bigger challenge. A few parents got away without me explaining this to them so they may have pitched theirs not knowing the point of it. I had also planned to play it during the party but had enough challenge prying them from the pool for presents at the designated end of party time.
All the food & loot were placed in sand pails around the umbrella pole on a table. I brought a few of Zach's toy sharks for decoration and then there was the photo prop he requested....
Again, I have to do such things myself for cheaper and to feed my artistic and creative side.So I took a cardboard box and opened both ends and the side where the box is glued or fused together, to make one long flat piece. I then drew a shark with a wide open mouth on it & used a knife to cut it out. Then painted it. It turned out great!!!
At the party before handing out their loot bags, I had each child stand behind it and look through the mouth. A couple of the younger ones were a bit scared and Zach was a little defiant, but there were lots of cute shots as well....
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| Alix & Haylee |
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| Alix & Haylee |
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| Luke |
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| Luke |
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| Talia |
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| Tavey |
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| Griffen |
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| Kailey |
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| Brady |
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| Atlea |
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| Atlea & Deagan |
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| Deagan |
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| Andy |
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| Andy |
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| Zach |
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| Mya |
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| Jake |
Some got away without a picture :(
I tried to get a group shot on the pirate ship. They were a pretty busy bunch, so you couldn't quite get all of them to stand still for it, but here is a majority of them...
Swim shots......
Parent crowd...
Presents.....
For our gift to Zach I ordered REAL SHARK TEETH of eBay. They were less than $5 and authenticated. He loved them. We also got him a shark inflatable on clearance at the end of lake season for $6 to open at the party. Then an Imaginext scary whale/shark for a couple bucks at the second hand store and a "Gross Science" game
for his Birthday Breakfast present. The breakfast ended up being supper this year for some reason.
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| Zach wanted Mac & Cheese for his bday meal & got a peanut butter doughnut for his "Birthday Breakfast" |
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| Luke bombed Zach's candle & blew it out making Zach cry. We relit it and tried again. |
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| Jakers trying to help. |
Birthday Budget: $150
Hotel Pool: free
Invitations, Food & Decoration: cardstock & ink already had on hand, 4 buckets from $Tree $4, dozen diving stick fish $3, goldfish crackers $4, bottled water $5ish, pirate keychains $3, stickers $1, clothespins & cupcake liners $2, paper plates $2, lootbags $1 ($25)
Gift: Dino Grabber $2, Imaginext Whale Shark $3, Imaginext dinos $7, Shark inflatable ride on $6, Real Shark Teeth $3. Science game $4 ($25)
Total Birthday Expenses: Approximately $50!!!!!!!!
Another successful birthday! Happy 6th Birthday Zachie Martin!!
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