Our eldest son, who was due to have a January birthday, obviously thought that a January birthday would be rather dull and pulled the plug three weeks before his due date. Our January baby turned into a December baby and arrived right in the middle of the Christmas party season – the midwives’ Christmas party to be precise!
Perhaps as a consequence of his birthday falling in the middle of the busiest month of the year, we seem to have have avoided a huge birthday party for him for the last four years.
His first year was pretty tough and so Mike and I quietly celebrated his birthday with a glass of bubbly and a pat on the back for surviving. His second year we celebrated with a mini party, mainly for our friends, with mince pies and mulled wine. His third year he decided that he wanted to go to his beloved Wagamama restaurant with his beloved friend Charlotte, and last year he decided on a day trip to London to see the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.
This year he decided he would like to take five of his friends to the cinema, which Mike and I agreed was a great idea. When I actually looked into it I was quite shocked at how expensive the cinema is (we don’t get out a great deal anymore!). After paying £7 each for a cinema ticket for each of the children (more for adults), and furnishing them with sweets, popcorn and a drink, we were probably looking at a second mortgage. Plan B was required.
After a bit of creative thinking we decided that we could transform our little front room into a little cinema and invite Dan’s friend to a “Saturday Night at the Movies” themed party. Our birthday boy was delighted with the idea and even more delighted when I said that he could extend the guest list from five to ten friends.
Mike’s kindly employer loaned him their projector for the weekend and our kindly next-door neighbour loaned us an old sheet to make a screen. I made up some great little invites on an online invitation site and we borrowed a DVD (‘Flushed Away’) from a friend. The invitations cost me £10, which is a cost that I could have avoided by employing Mike’s photoshop skills. However, Mike was having a very busy month at work, so instead I used the very good Vista Print (www.vistaprint.co.uk)
The invitation
On the day of the party Mike set up the ‘cinema’, I made up the party bags (containing mini gliders, some balloons and a small packet of sweets), which cost me approx £1.50 each.
Spend so far =£25.
All that was left to do was make some popcorn (cost approx £1), put it into fabulous popcorn bags procured from eBay (cost £2.65), and make some hot dogs (approx cost £4), and buy some juice cartons (£4).
With these refreshments I set up a mini-shop, and when the guests arrived we gave them gold chocolate coins to use at the shop. Once all the guests had ‘bought’ their hotdogs, popcorn and juice, we took them into a ‘cinema’ and started up the film.
Refreshments
Spend so far =£36.65
They all thought it was great and all but a couple of the children, who were all aged four or five, sat through the whole 80 or so minutes of the film. I must admit that this was my biggest concern about the party – that the kids would get bored after 20mins of the film. A couple of the children came out for a little play and then went back, and the rest of them remained glued to the screen for the whole film.
Projecting the DVD onto a sheet and making the room dark was really effective and the children seemed to really love it.
After the film was finished, all that was left to do was sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to our lovely boy, give out some party bags, eat some cake and hand our eldest’s gorgeous friends back to their parents. Job done.
As I am much better at making cupcakes then big cakes, I devised this very simple cake and got Mike to help me construct a popcorn box out a cereal box. The cakes cost around £2 in total, brining the entire cost of the a party to an affordable £38.65.
Rach – you don’t cease to amaze me! You are brilliant! Happy New Year to you and the family and I look forward to 2010′s blogs. Loads of love xxxxxx
It’s working in the public sector for so long that makes me talented at making a little bit of money go along way.
Happy New Year and hopefully see you soon.
Lots of love xx
What a wonderful idea. I’m just trying to think of a cost effective party idea myself that meets expectations. I did cinema last year and thought I’d be clever and take my own food and drink but they so wanted popcorn so I relented – most of it ended up on the floor. I then spent a great portion of the film making trips to the toilet! It was hard work and there were only 4 kids!
Thanks for your comment Lisa. I have to say I am now really pleased that we didn’t go to the cinema – I hadn’t even thought about the toilet logistics!
Good luck with the party planning.
Cheers, Rach
Fantastic! My daughter’s birthday is the 21st of December and yes, we always struggle with both the cost and the original party ideas. This party looks great and even better, the cost is low–very low for that many kids. Very well thought out! Im visiting from the Carnival, glad to ‘meet’ you!
Love that. Such fun and must have felt like going to the circus for the children. You are very creative, the little touches are those that make the difference, and you do them brilliantly. Impressed!
thanks for your comment Michelloui. Nice to ‘meet’ you too!
It’s tough with a Christmas-time birthday isn’t it? The main thing (as well as being so busy I wanted to sleep for a week post-Christmas) was that our boy was pretty overwhelmed by all the bday and xmas presents. I’ve actually put some away for a mid-year surprise – something that I definitely won’t get away with for much longer!
I will check out your blog…I’m pretty new to all this stuff, and this is my first ‘carnival’
Cheers, Rach
Thank you! I gave up work this summer to look after my boys full time. Dumping the stressful job seems to have done wonders for my creativity! Love your Angels and Urchins site. Wish we had something similar in Bath. It makes me want to live in London again – so much great stuff for kids. Roll on our next visit – and I will definitely use your site before we come!
What a brilliant and creative idea, you are very clever. I will defiantly remember this for birthdays when my boys are abit older. Happy New Year!
Thanks Emily. One of the school gate mums told me that her daughter had reported it was “the coolest party she had ever been to”
Praise indeed!
Happy New Year to you too!
Rachel, what a great idea. the little touches really make it – the popcorn bags, the gold coins to “buy” stuff. Wish we’d thought of this for daughter’s birthday party next week but will remember for next year.
Would love to chat sometime. Get in touch via twitter or alphamummy.com!
Thanks for your comment – and the mention on Alphamummy! I’ve had lots of views because of it this afternoon!
I’ll drop you a line.
Cheers, Rach
This link was forwarded to me on twitter after asking for suggestions for my soon-to-be 4 year olds birthday party. I sooooo want to do something similar, but I’m concerned he’s one year too young. He will not sit still through an entire film. Now if only I could come up with a solution…
Thanks for your comment…I don’t think our eldest would have sat through a whole film this time last year. Our youngest is completely different (he is 2 going on 6) and sat amongst all the big kids, popcorn in hand, and watched the whole thing!
Good luck with your party planning.
Cheers, Rach
How very creative, I’m impressed. Very inspiring.
Thank you. You are very kind!
Wow that is brilliant. Miss M turns 5 at the end of Jan and this would have been perfect but she’s having a joint one with a friend. Definitely one for the future though.
Hope Miss M has a great birthday!
Brilliant idea! Love the cupcakes! I will add a link to this to my twitter
thanks, and thanks for the twitter link too
Well done you. I’ve always been the Mum who had parties at home to cries of “you’re so brave” from other Mums. Boys have loved them, and so have I. I refuse to do party bags (cost & waste) – just a piece of birthday cake and any prizes they’ve won. So simple, and we’ve encouraged others to do it themselves as well!
I love having birthday parties at home – although I do think you need an activity and lots of games to keep the kids busy. Here’s another budget one that I did in the summer…
http://retrowife.co.uk/2009/09/10/childrens-party-on-a-budget/
I went to a great party recently when the hosts (like me) have quite a small home. Their 4 year old had lots of guests and so they put up in a huge tent in their garden and we all decamped to that for pass the parcel. It was hail-stoning on the tent and the kids thought it was the MOST exciting place to have a game of pass the parcel!
Thanks for your comment.
This is brilliant! My daughter is having a pyjama DVD party this year, and we are thoroughly looking forward to it. I especially love the chocolate coins to buy popcorn etc. We may borrow that one….
Thanks!
Thanks for your comment Sarah. Well we had to do something creative with the hundreds of chocolate coins that seems to appear in our house this Christmas! A word of warning though; quite a lot of the children needed some convincing that once they had given me their coins I would put them in the party bags so that they could eat them later!
What a fabulous idea for a party. It just goes to show that a little creative thinking goes a long way. Well done! We’ll definitely be doing that for Erbie when he’s old enough (only 16 months presently) in fact I might do it for my husbands next birthday!
WEM
Thank you! You might be interested in this party that I did earlier this year for my 2 year old – http://retrowife.co.uk/2009/09/10/childrens-party-on-a-budget/
Cheers, Rach
Great idea. We did something similar for my Dads 60th (minus the goodie bags) and he LOVED it.
I’ve got a few birthdays coming up, reckon one will be a cinema ‘trip’ too.
Cheeky party. I want this for my b-day!
pve
Hi Rach,
I’ve heard so much about your blog that I had to find it for myself…..the party idea is a corker! My Dan’s 7th birthday is coming up in February and I think I’ll give it a go!
Hope all’s well with you and the family. You sound so happy and serene – I want some of it!
Love, Carolyn
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks so much for your comment. I do feel happy (but perhaps not too serene, especially after all the snow days this week!)
Let me know how Dan’s birthday goes. I hope you and the boys and Tore are all well.
Love Rach xx
Nice one. Almost makes me want to have young kids again! Really like the idea of the ‘shop’.
Thanks Andy. Funny that, because when i talk to you about your kids it makes me look forward to my boys being teenagers!
Cheers Rach
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I came over from Angels and Urchins who recommended you. So glad I came. What a fab party idea and you did it so creatively. Note to self: copy this.
Thanks for your lovely comment. Copy away…!!
Cheers, Rach
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Hi Rachel
I stumbled across your blog yesterday as we were discussing what to do for my son’s 5th birthday party. Coincidentally, we were going to take him and a few friends to the cinema but, like you, we realised it was going to be far too expensive.
So my husband said “why don’t we re-create the cinema at home?” Then I found your blog which has given me plenty of ideas. Thank you!
Just wanted to ask though, what online invitation site did you use to design the invites?
All the best
Lindsay
Hi Lindsay,
I used Vista Print for the invites. They’re very good and reasonably priced – but the postage is expensive if you’re in a rush.
Hope the party goes really well
Best wishes,
Rachel