Great Parties For Kids On A Budget

I'm a single parent to Spud and don't get any help, last year I wanted Spud to have the best party he had ever had as I knew he wouldn't be having one this year for his 7th Birthday (he's had a party every year and I decided we would do something different this year). I wanted to make it a sweet 6th (yes 6th!!!) Birthday party, there was one problem, I had a budget to stick too unlike the super rich on MTV!

Spud as I'm pretty sure your all aware of by now is Mickey Mouse OBSESSED, he's into anything Disney but Mickey is his all time favourite, and seeing as I didn't have the money to take him to Disney Land to see Mickey Mouse, I thought I would bring Mickey Mouse to him, at his 6th Birthday party!

Spud's Mickey Mouse window with just some of the Mickey's he has.

I needed a Mickey Mouse mascot, but some of the companies out there was charging ridiculous prices, something like £200 for the hire, £150 deposit and then they wanted more for the extra's like the hands and the feet! I posted a message on my local Facebook buy and sell group asking if anyone had one I could hire, I know some people have purchased the mascot costumes themselves for fancy dress parties so I thought I would try my luck, no one had one unfortunately but another member of the buy and sell group told me about a fancy dress shop in Basingstoke, not too far away from Reading. 

The mascot costume I hired.

I Googled the name of the shop and only the address and telephone number come up, I was hoping for the company to have a website but I thought I would call up anyway, the lady was very nice and told me to come down and have a look. My lovely Father drove me up there two days after I rang the shop to have a look, the costume was great and I was amazed at how many costumes this shop had! To my surprise the lady was willing to let me have the mascot from that moment, she didn't want no deposit and it only cost me £25 to hire for a whole 3 weeks! I made sure we returned it the day after Spud's party! Mascot was down, the rest to go!

I had already hired the local leisure center's party hall out which had two bouncy castles, a massive space for the kids to run around in and soft play with a ball pit for the younger guest, we got the hall for £80 for two hours including the bouncy castles,etc. I purchased Mickey Mouse table covers, party bags, cups, plates, hats, banners and a badge for Spud's party from various shops like Toys R Us and Tesco.

Spud's cake, computer edited, the wings of the plane had his initials and the suitcases spelled out his name and one had number 6 on it. 

Spud wanted a Mickey Mouse plane cake, Spud's Birthday is in March, so not that long after Christmas. For Christmas, I purchased him the Fisher Price Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Plane, I decided to buy a large made to order plain white cake from Cosco and with the help of my friend, we made the Mickey Mouse plane, a runway, some clouds, tree's and other little bits for the topper all using icing, Mickey Mouse was too hard to even attempt to make, so I just washed the Mickey Mouse pilot and slotted him into our edible plane. This saved me loads of money as the icing including the colours come to £7 and the cake cost me £13 including VAT which fed 40+, the grand price was £20 and some free labour, a cake maker would of cost me about £80 for the price of the cake we had!

Spud with his cake.

Next up was the party games, I decided to do something totally unique, I brought a number of gifts to fill two gift bags, one for a boy and one for a girl, I filled them with about £8 worth of products each and then brought two £1 Cadbury Easter eggs too (Spud's Birthday is the 30th of March, it normally falls around Easter) to give as prizes for the 'game'. I didn't want to do pass the parcel, or musical statues we didn't have enough time for that with the 2 hour slot I had booked in, instead I made my own Mickey Mouse scratch cards! I will do a post on this soon telling you exactly how I done this!

Doing the scratchcards!

I also made a big massive poster with Mickey's face on it, and coloured in large round stickers with a black felt tip for the children to 'stick Mickey's nose on' the resources for that cost me £3!! All you need is a large piece of card which you can get from The Works, Wilkinson, Hobby Craft, Staples etc, a pack of felt tips which you can pick up from anywhere and some round stickers from Hobby Craft.

Spud with 'Mickey Mouse'.

I persuaded by wonderful cousin Jay to get in the mascot for me which cost me nothing, although I did give him £5 to get himself some cigarettes  The food and drink cost around £100 including food and drink for the adults and we had plenty left! Party bag fillings cost me about £20 for 20 kids, I brought the youngest guest jars of baby food, milkybar buttons and other various baby bits including mini wipes, a rattle etc, I spent around £12 for 5 babies.

Spud had an amazing day and other Mum's were congratulating me on the success, the faces on the children when Mickey Mouse arrived was priceless, my baby boy just stood there shocked, I said to him go get him Spud, and he just grabbed my hand and we ran to Mickey together, I had tears in my eyes watching my beautiful boy with his all time favourite character, seeing the sparkle and happiness in his eyes, and he never had a clue that his big cousin was really playing the part!

Until next time,

Jade x