Party Favors/Gift Bags

I have seen these at 2 different Targets...in the "Dollar Bin" near the entrance there are miniture lunce tins that are filled with candy - Dots, Worms, ect. They are cute and only$1!

I am not big on spending much on party favors either. The way I look at it, the child was invited and the party is their treat. I know, many moms would gasp at this. I woudln't feel bad if you just weren't in to it. At her 2nd birthday party, I just gave a little bag with some dora fruit snacks and a little ball (we didn't really have a specific theme).

However, in thinking about my daughter's next birthday party (she wants a "doggie" birthday party), I kind of think I might enjoy putting a little thing together just because of the theme...makes me a little more excited to put something together. Like putting those Scoobie snacks (dog bone shaped cookies) in there, etc. My friend had a wide age range like you, but she still followed the theme. It was a pool party with a mermaid theme. For the older kids she got big cheap water guns as their favor to play with at the party.

Do you have a theme? Maybe start there for some ideas.

Also, maybe you should just focus the goodie bags/party favor towards the little kids. My brother is 16 now and I never thought about giving him a goodie bag at my daughter's birthday party. I think the "big kids" are a little old for that and proably won't care too much about not getting a little bag of toys and candy. :)

Party City now sells party favors in a bag. It's per charater or theme. I did my son's birthday this way and I only spent $10 for 8 kids. It came with the party bag and five themed party favors. That might work well for the younger ones. Hope that helped some.

I don't know if you want to do candy but what I've done for the past 2 years I got off of Food Network. Go to www.foodnetwork.com and type in the word "ice cream cone" in the search engine. Sandra Lee gets icc's rolls the top in white chocolate and colored sprinkles and puts a couple of peices of candy in them (just buy a big bag of candy w/ everything in it) and then wrap with clear and tie w/ ribbon. Fast, easy, and inexpensive. Good Luck I hope this helps!!