Once our children are old enough, they let us know exactly what kind of birthday party they want. They learn real early to pick a character for their plates. But what about when they are too young to decide? You could do what most people do and pick a character for them like Barney, Elmo or Winnie the Pooh for their birthday party. Or, you could celebrate what they DO love, and center a birthday party around that.
I say it in every birthday party article and I will say it again. Homemade is best and I can prove it over and over. I want my children to learn that homemade is better than anything bought. Most of my very best childhood memories are from those moments when people in my life made something from nothing, or made something more creative or fun. Who remembers their character plates? Not me.
If your small child loves music, then plan a birthday party all around music and celebrating that about him or her. Balls are a big love of young children so why not center an entire birthday party around balls? Most young children love all the colors around them. They are just learning their colors and feel proud to recite them to you. Would they love to see a whole party around colors? You can create a fantastic birthday party with any theme. Believe it or not, there is not a rule book that states that you must use a character or spend a lot of money on your child’s birthday party.
My goal is to get the WOW with my parties. My second goal is to reuse anything I can and to save as much money as possible without people noticing. I love that I use the same things over and over, only change the color, use it differently or slap a themed sticker on it. Here are my ideas for creating an entire birthday party with the ball theme. Let your imaginations run wild when reading, using, and changing these ideas to fit your needs.
MUSIC THEMED BIRTHDAY PARTY IDEAS:
For the birthday party invitation, you can do anything musical note related like a homemade card stock musical note with the birthday party information printed or written on it. You can go a step further and pull out all the cassettes that you have been wanting to pitch and incorporate those into a cool invitation or just drop one in each envelope. Burned Cd’s of children’s music would be a great way to get the children excited to attend the birthday party. If you live close to all the guests who will be invited to the birthday party, you could buy echo microphones and glue printed out party information to them and drop them in their mailboxes, or mail them. You can buy echo microphones at any dollar store. You can also make microphone shaped invitations to send with the birthday party information printed on them
You can decorate your birthday party space with homemade musical notes easily made by cutting out notes from black paper. You can make a banner by buying a cheap birthday banner from the dollar store and gluing musical notes to the banner. I re-use my banner for each birthday party by changing the themed items glued to it. You can pull out any musical instruments that you may have and either leave them out to play with or set them up high with a birthday message on them. You could make garland with Christmas bells or place them over doors so that they will jingle when the doors are opened. You can hang either blow up microphones and guitars or plastic ones from the ceiling. As always, add pictures of the birthday boy or girl to the homemade signs. This reminds them visually how special they are to you and that they are the ones in the spotlight.
The birthday cake could be a round cake with black icing for a note or shaped like a microphone. What I think would be the best idea would be to make microphone cupcakes instead of a birthday cake. You simply bake your cake batter inside ice cream cones just like you would inside a cupcake liner. The only difference is that you only fill the cone half way up with batter. They look just like microphones when they are done. You can decorate them as you would like. You could always have a small birthday cake to use as well with candles to blow out. Be sure and re-use candles from another birthday party if you have them.
The activity ideas here are endless. Since the children are very young, you do not have to have set games, more like activities. You can have a limbo contest, a karaoke contest with children’s favorites like Twinkle Twinkle or You Are My Sunshine. Musical chairs would be the perfect activity and young children love it. You can award them prizes as you go or just give them a goodie bag or party favor at the end of the birthday party.
A great musical birthday party activity would be to make musical shakers by filling plastic easter eggs with dry beans and taping them shut. Or you can make homemade drums with decorated butter containers and a dowel stick or chop sticks. A nice musical parade would be fun, allowing each child to play a special instrument or their new homemade instruments. The birthday boy or girl could lead the birthday parade with a crown on his or her head.
If you want to hand out one big party favor, you could buy inexpensive guitars, drums or echo microphones. If you prefer a filled goodie bag, try adding tiny bubbles, yo yo’s, balls, crayons or coloring books.
Whatever you want to add to this birthday party, you can add to make it even better. While you are in the car or in line waiting and you can’t do anything else, think about other things you can add and what you already have at home that you could use. The more creative, the more memorable it will be. Nothing has to be fancy to be creative. Good Luck party planning!
