Fresh Beat Band Birthday: Goody Bags and Giveaways

Besides the food, the giveaways are probably the second most fun thing about birthday parties. Well, to me anyway. Maybe I'm a little bitter that adult birthday parties don't involve goody bags ;) I guess that's half the fun of having kids though, I get to relive my childhood through my kids again.

I'm not gonna lie. After blog browsing around for a few days, I'm pretty intimidated by all of the amazing themed birthdays I've found out there like this Unicorn and Rainbows party, or this Nutcracker Suite Ballet party. I realize that this is for a child who is turning 2, and who probably won't remember the party anyway, but I still want to make it the best that I can with what I can find on a budget. And it became totally worth it when I showed my daughter the Fresh Beat Band invitations I made and she got a big smile on her face and said, "my Ba Beats?" We're working on saying the word "fresh," which she can say by itself, but not when combined with "Beat" for some reason.

After I found the decorations and partyware at WalMart, I decided to look around for some ideas on things to put in the goody bags for Haley's little friends coming to the party. Since the Fresh Beat Band is music-themed, I wanted to include items that fit the show. I think the WalMart gods were reading my mind.

How perfect are these?? In the party aisle, I found little assorted plastic instruments and bubbles in the shape of guitars! I also picked up some clear plastic bags to put everything in and blue curling ribbon to tie the bags closed. As much as I would like to create individualized little goody boxes, I'm not crazy. Birthday on a budget? Check. I know my house is going to be full of noise on Saturday, but I think I can handle it for a couple hours.

Aside from the plastic instruments and bubbles, I wanted to also include coloring pages for the kids. Since there isn't any Fresh Beat Band themed ANYthing out there yet, I had to (again) get creative. I know I've mentioned how cool Picnik.com is before, but seriously, I can't say enough good stuff about it. It's a free photo editing site that's perfect for those of us who aren't pros at Photoshop. I used Picnik to make my banner and edit most of my photos. And for the birthday party, I also used it to make these coloring pages:

They turned out a little grainy since they were small images so they distorted some when I stretched them, but I'm still pretty happy with the outcome. It's so easy to turn any picture you have into a coloring page. How cute would it be to give your child a book of coloring pages full of photos of themselves? Come back tomorrow, and I'll post a tutorial on how to turn your pictures into coloring pages!

I used 1 of each coloring page per child, and rolled them up into scrolls. I also bought a pack of Crayola crayons and tied 4 of them together with the curling ribbon to add to the goody bags.

The crayons went into the goody bags, and I tied them each with the blue curling ribbon. To finish off the bags, I went to the NickJr.com website and printed off some of their Fresh Beat Band Memory Match printables. These made perfect tags for each bag.

And finally, it wouldn't be a true Fresh Beat Band birthday without backstage passes, would it? I got these off of of NickJr.com as well. That website has been a lifesaver since I don't have anything else to work with.

I just printed them up, folded them and added some tacky glue to hold the front and back together. Add some yarn, and instant backstage passes for your little VIP! I think the kids are going to love them. And if not, I'll make the adults wear them :)

Saturday is the big day when my baby turns 2! I'll be posting a blog next week about how everything turned out. I just can't believe another year has gone by so fast. It seems like just yesterday she was blowing out her first candle...