Goody Bag Ideas - Braintree,MA

Rather than a goody bag with toys and candy, I'm a big fan of giving out books. If your daughter is in school, you can often find cheap books related to your party theme in her Scholastic book order form. You can even personalize each copy with your daughter's name, birthday, and a little message.

When my daughter turned 4, we had a Disney Princess-themed party, and we gave out CD's with songs from the Princess Movies. We had a copy of The Disney CD Collection and just copied several songs from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Mulan and Pocahontas. These were a HUGE hit, and we still play our copy in the car!

I LOVE planning birthday parties, so if you would like to email me with your theme idea, I would love to give you more specific suggestions.

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melissa and doug create your own puzzle kits are a lot of fun!

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Hi Ladies,
For both my son and my daughter we gave out water bottles which you can get at Walmart or Christmas tree shop for only $1. You can then fill the water bottle with goodies or stickers sunglasses or whatever. I even went ahead and labeled each one with a paint pen with each child's name on it.....the parents loved it as much as the kids.
Hope this helped,
L.

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Hi S.,
We've used a number of creative things for our kids goody bag. For the pirate theme I took black felt and sewed loot bags with gold cord for drawstrings. Then I glued white felt skull and crossbones on the front. The kids found a treasure chest during the party and stuffed these bags with the jewelry and other stuff from that.

For the Star Wars party we used the plastic canisters from Lays stacked chips (like Pringles) and made new Star Wars based labels for the outside. We put stickers and characters in these for the kids.

For the Willy Wonka party the "bag" was a plastic black top hat that got filled with candy, a toothbrush and toothpaste.

My daughter will be 5 in May and her theme is Puppies. (We got a dog in the fall who's birthday is the day after hers so it's very cute that she wants this theme.) I bought small stainless steel dog bowls at the dollar bin in Target that the kids will decorate, eat out of and take home. We're going to make dog collars and they'll each get to adopt a small puppy stuffy. Some doggie snacks and a bone shaped cookie may round out the stuff for the doggie bag.

This website has great party ideas including invite, games and goodie bag ideas.

www.birthdaypartyideas.com

Also orientaltrading.com has inexpensive toys and party bag fillers in lots of themes.

Have fun!

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S.,

These kids are old enough for you to promote a healthy lifestyle. I think it would be fun to give colorful shoelaces for sneakers, maybe a jump rope, and/or some healthy snacks (dried fruit, organic granola bars, etc...)

Just some ideas from a soon-to-be first time mom but a somewhat experienced teacher....

Have fun.

A

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How about pretty barrettes, flavored chap-sticks, stick-on nail decals (flowers or stars?) that you cover with clear nail polish? Or long strings of beads or straw hats, and some plastic/silk flower pieces that they could attach to their hats during the party, then take home? How about a small pot and some flower seeds that they can take home and plant themselves?

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Pail and shovel with outdoor "toys". Bubbles, jumprope, sidewalk chalk, and then you could also add in some candy. You could write each child's name on their pail. Target is a good place to get all of these things for cheap money. Also, you could try oriental trading website. Have fun!

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How about giving each of them a pass to discovery stop in Londonderry, or Imagine That in Lawrence? My kids & all of my friends' kids love going to both of those places!

I just had my daughters 6th b-day and I went really simple. We had just girls for her party and I went to the Christmads Tree Shop and got bubbles, a coloring book and crayons and I put in a homemade hair bow in each one, got little bags and put some tissue paper in each one, simple and it didn't cost much either! My other option was going to be a beach bucket but they didn't have enough buckets!! Good luck!!

Hi S.,

Think Bubbles! We just had a birthday party for my boys (5 & 3), my son's "goilfriend" (5) and a family friend's son (7). The goilfriend's mom made up the goody "bags" (we didn't do bags) with just noiseless party blowers and these three-packs of bubbles, scented and in bottles shaped like Coke bottles, that she got from a dollar store. When we were getting set up at the bowling alley, the hostesses tied one balloon to each package of bubbles and we put the blowers right in the middle of the package. All the kids LOVED their goody "bags" and it was very inexpensive.

Personally I think goody bags have gotten too complicated. I know my sis-in-law has been known to give out gift cards to Blockbuster and other expensive goodies like that. I think that's ridiculous and just serves to drive the notion of a consumer culture into the kids' eyes. Candy always worked well for us (especially with pinatas--just give the kids empty bags and let them have at the pinata), but to be more health-conscious this year we decided against it. The bubbles worked wonders in the candy's place.

They're worth a shot!

--M.