Suggestions for 3 Year Old Goodie Bags

I like the idea of a small craft that they can take home to do. I can usually find great things at Michael's and Joann's crafts for $1 each. I have done paint it yourself wooden cars and bird houses, and found foam princess crown kits that came with stick on gems and a tube of glitter glue. Gives them something to look forward to doing with mom or dad at home on the following weekend.

For the girls- I have an online boutique & make hair pretties- can do to match themes & would offer a discount for a party. I made Hello Kitty Clippies for my daughters birthday & am making these adorable fishy clips for my son''s fish themed party (for the girls bags). Check out my site & convo me if you are interested!
www.birdylu.etsy.com

K.

If you're feeling crafty, consider getting some t-shirts and paint from Michaels. The shirts run about $2-3. I usually design some 'logo' for the party and put the child's name on the shirt. I just free-form the painting--simple designs--block letter names, etc. The kids really like them...You can also design or copy patterns from the computer and create an iron-on design.

Have you checked out Target's dollar bins? They often have cute Hello Kitty items, etc.

We take care of two things at once - one of the party activities is a craft project of some sort and instead of bags, they take that craft home with them. One year was painting clay pots, another was hand prints on an 8x10 that they signed in their cute kid writing and I framed. Then last year was colored sand in plastic animal shapes. I colored the sand myself with food coloring, so it was relatively cheap.
I completely agree with no goodie bags, especially with candy; kids get more than enough sweets without them :)

Does your daughter have a favorite book? I asked my local bookstore (but you can check on-line as well) if a certain book was available in an smaller, inexpensive paperback format and it was. We bought 10 books at under $5 a piece. Books are always great!

Well my son is only having his 2 year old birthday, but I'm putting in animal crackers instead of candy and tiny koosh balls, hard plastic model animals (not sure if this classifies as "CPC" in your book), stickers and those little capsules you put in the bath that expand into sponge animals/shapes. I also think kids would love mini bottles of bubbles. But I guess it depends on how much money you want to spend on the treat sacks.

Clementines! My kids love them and can open themselves, so it's a cute snack that is already wrapped! Also, crayons, goldfish or animal crackers, coloring book, stickers, toothbrush and toothpaste, and our favorite, a coupon for a ice cream cone at McDonalds or Dairy Queen!

I put Playdough, stickers, bouncy balls and a bag of goldfish crackers in my son's birthday goodie bags. It was a Lego theme - I bought gift boxes and the stickers online to stay with the theme - the rest were just for fun and I don't think any of the kids minded that they were not Lego themed.

get boy and girl gift bags from the dollar store and that way you won't be limited to unisex items. Dollar stores are great for inexpensive things, like crayons, small books, pencils, stickers.....I love shopping at the dollar stores for gift bags and baskets.

When my daughter was three we did very cute goody bags and everyone loved them. We gave everyone one thing of playdough. I went to Michaels and got a huge thing of animal cookie cutters. I tied two or three cookie cutters (the plastic kind) to a ribbon and ties that to the playdough can. It was cute, and the kids loved playing with the playdough and cookie cutters.

I like www.Orientaltrading.com. They sell a lot of junk,but I always manage to find some fun, non-cheesy things. We're going to have a Kai-Lan party for our soon-to-be 3 year old in March and I'm going to order some Chinese sticker sets. I'd rather give away one thing that is nice (yet not expensive) than a bunch of junk just to fill a bag. You can usually find a fun and practical gift to fit any theme at Orientaltrading.com, and at a good price. Good luck and have fun!!

My son had a super hero birthday party and I got some batman and superman toothbrushes for the goodie bags. I also added spiderman fruit snacks and some stickers. I also did not want the plastic toys or candy.

i hate when people put candy in there! an alternative could be fruit snacks or little cookie packs... animal crackers, stickers, large super balls,

I was a nanny for twenty years and man oh man have I seen junk in bags. Love that you don't want to do candy. I have purchased the mini play-doh, stickers, and crafts. Oriental Trading is a great place to get lots of crafts for a good price or you could try Lakeshorelearning.com Also, if you have a bowling alley, game center, pump it up or an indoor activity place that you like to take your kids too,you can always call and ask if they have coupons, because you would like to put them in a goodie bag, sometimes they give them too you other times you have to pay for them. It never hurts to ask.

Good luck!

K.

The best one I did was for my son's 1st birthday day. The take-home item was the board book "Birthday Monsters" (it was a monster themed party) that I got for $2.50 ea at half.com.

I like to get the following from the dollar store:
magic towels
crayons
notebooks
goldfish crackers
bracelets/watches
a doll figurine/diecast cars.
fancy glasses

M.

Right now, Borders has some amazing deals in their clearance areas. I was at the one in Oakbrook last weekend, but I think it's in all stores. Big selection of children's paperbacks for $1.99.

For my son's 6th birthday recently, I went to a discount book store and found some really nice early reader books (my budget was up to $4 each.) They also got fruit snacks and sun chips.

ETA that the books should be ones you would buy yourself for your kids. Not those awful holiday-themed books that they have at the dollar store. (and I say that as someone who has bought the awful books and realized how awful they are to have to read later!)

Crayons are always great. Depending on how many young guests you will have, it might be worth it to buy a set of bath squirter toys and then break it up - spread a set of six over six bags. Sometimes you can find decks of "Go Fish" type cards inexpensively as well. Bubbles are also popular - sometimes they have party packs that are bundled inexpensively.

I try to get things that people would actually use... one year my daughters party was at an ocean themed place, so the gift "bags" were sand buckets, and I put in a shovel, beach ball, sunglasses, stickers, etc.
Last year her party was at a farm, so it was animal themed... i got these bendy animal toys that my daughters LOVE playing with from orientaltrading.com, and animal crackers.... and I can't remember what else!!!
My other daughter had a party at the playground, so I bought from walmart the bubble party favor packs... it's really cheap and surprisingly nice, and comes with the bags to put them in also! It was a 4 piece bubble kit, and I added a cell phone water game to it.

Last year I gave sunglasses from the Children's Place. They aren't unisex so I chose them for each child. They were about $3 a pair. Everyone loves sunglasses! I put them in a cup from Walmart. They had princess and Cars ones. I added some candy for filler. Have fun!

You have so many answers but I had to reply! I loved the party we just went to, there were only 3 or 4 things in the bag, but they were bigger things so it was filled so it looked like you got enough without being junky! Bag of animal crackers (these bags are big and take up a lot of space), sheet of puffy stickers, some kind of healthy fruit licorice stick, maybe a little something else. But we ate the snacks and used the stickers and it's gone!
Another party was we decorated sugar cookies at the party, they put them aside to dry, then put them in a cellofane bag with ribbon before we left to give as a favor.

Books are my favorite.

I too avoid the candy in party goodie bags. Having a theme though really helps in deciding what goes in the bag.
In the past we have done stickers, notebooks and pencils/crayons for the non-descript party theme. But when we have a theme there is usually some item related to the theme that jumps out at us.
For Dora I'd make maps as part of a party game that will lead the kids to a "treasure". Or Nick jr. has some great coloring sheets you can download.
For princess theme, crowns are always fun. Just refer to the boys as Prince.
At age 3 I found all toys are gender neutral.

For my kids goodie bags, I've always gone to the dollar store! You can get stickers, bouncy balls, mini-playdoh, crayons, small coloring books, many alternatives to candy & junk!
Good luck!

add fruit rollups. All kids love those!