Balloons: Everyone usually plans to have blown up balloons at a party but handing out balloons that are not blown up as party favors is something all school age boys love. You can pick up a bag of balloons in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Check your local discount stores and dollar stores and make sure you look in the craft section or toy section. Balloons in those sections are usually cheaper than balloons in the party section. Shop around and you will find you can get dozens of fun balloon party favors for literally pennies a piece!
Printed Puzzles: This is the easiest party favor you can get and it’s practically free! Simply print out some age appropriate crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, dot to dot puzzles, mazes, etc. You can find many sites online that offer free printable puzzles for kids. Some good sources are kidprintables.com or printactivities.com or just do an online search for “free printable puzzles” and you will find a wealth of sources. Just print them out on colored paper (plain old white is fine too!) and you have some very inexpensive party favors... as many as you need! If you want to save on cost of paper and printing ink you can try to fit 4 puzzles on one page. Kids always love puzzles and they are educational too!
Snacks: Kids love snacks. And their parents will appreciate the snacks too! Put your thinking cap on and look for items that you can buy in packs such as juice boxes, wrapped crackers and cheese, pudding cups, jello cups, snack size boxes of raisins, single serving fruit cups, etc. These party favors may cost anywhere from 25 to 50 cents each but they can be the “grand finale” party favors!
Candy: If you are really on a tight budget you can look for bags of individually wrapped candy or gum. A great time to buy is right after a holiday when a lot of candy is half price. The boys won’t mind if they get Halloween candy at a November birthday party. In fact, they’ll get a kick out of it!
Money: Boys love money! You can hand out pennies, nickels, or dimes… whatever you can afford. You can make it fun by putting the coins in a bag and letting the winner of a game pick just one. Then let them tell everyone the year on the coin. Just make it fun. They will love it!
Parties are all about fun. And boys of all ages will appreciate any party favors you hand out. Never think a party favor is too silly to give. I threw many parties for my son for every occasion and even teenagers get a kick out of balloons and candy and such. I don’t think they ever really grow up!
Sources: www.kidprintables.com, www.printactivities.com
