Frugal Birthday Party Series: Handmade Decoration

For a kid's birthday party there is a lot to consider. In my experience of planning a party for all my boys have been very exciting. For each party thrown I feel like I've grown to be better in themes, and how to "frugally" prepare for it. So as I trace back my ideas in the past, I must say this decoration above must be one of my favorite yet.

The setting of the party is not just to eat and play games, but this time I had some very close friends to help me create a setting for a story book reading area. And the picture above was a way to create a place for kids to sit down on the rug. I use to take my first son to the park and read to him before letting him play at the playground. And he loved the idea. I guess I could say that memory was part of this decoration idea. We put pillows and the rug and two couches for parents to sit by while the kids listen to a reader. I really wanted the kids find that children party are not only running around with other kids and eat cake.

Expense for decoration:
1. construction paper/butcher paper/poster board: $1 per at the Dollar Tree store
2. Paint:  $0, I always have kid friendly paint in hand.
3. stapler: $0
4. pipe cleaner: $2 min at Joann's Craft Store.

Instruction:
To make a tree - buy a green poster board, draw a cloud shape using up most of the poster board so that you don't waste any. And/or, make small branches with small green cloud shape connected to it. For the bark of the tree, I had my boys paint butcher paper in color brown. They loved it of course. Then I cut it in to a shape of a tree bark. I used a black marker to draw some lines and make it look like a tree with a whole. But with the picture above it's hard to see.

Flowers and the grass - this is very easy and you don' t realy need a pencil. But if you prefer to draw the shape of grass to know where to cut through please be creative and enjoy. This how I made my grasses, I just cut and made spikes on a poster board shaped it to look like grass. Stapled it on the wall everywhere. And for the flowers, that one I had draw out and then cut. Took the pipecleaner and taped it at the back of the flower. Then inserted it on some of the grasses. I thought it would be a nice touch to make it see like the kids are on a meadow or a hill listening to a story. But I will never know.

I hope you liked this one. I invite you to read my series on: Frugal Birthday Party Series.