gram's party: favors

As I've said before, this year we decided not to have my son's birthday party at home. With a 3-week old in the house, I thought it would be too overwhelming. However, I didn't want to use that as an excuse to not create anything special for his big day, so I decided to put together a few key items that could be transported to the party site (a kid's gym).

Using the invitation color palette as a springboard, I created favors that reflected the loose theme of the party... 'playing.' The favor bags contained items that Gram loves to play with- Play Doh, a whistle, and a ball (all in the color palette, of course!).

I was appalled at the price of shred fill ($3+ for a small bag of crinkled colored paper!), so I decided to create my own, using scraps of leftover wrapping paper and my shredder (photos 3 & 4). A much cheaper (and more chic, I think) alternative. Then I created a 'cuff' for some store-bought gift bags that folded over the top. If you are not computer savvy, some pretty scrapbooking paper would look great as well. I used a bone folder to get a crisp fold, and a mini stapler to put the cuff in place.

Lastly, I inserted a thank you card into each bag that was designed to look like it was on school ruled paper- again, an element that fit in with the color palette of red, white and turquoise blue.

sources:

red gift bags...michaels

classic colors play doh...hasbro

balls and whistle...oriental trading company

shredder...amazon

invitations...hicks paper goods

location...my gym