Shelley's Awesomely Cheap Birthday Party!

(She is 8 now, she has to look the part...yep, all grown up, and grown-ups are serious!)

My little niece had a birthday over the weekend.  She is now 8.  Wow.  It seems like only yesterday that we were bowing our heads and trying not to laugh and/or hide our laughter as she formed her first big sentences.  (This had nothing to do with her speech problems, and  everything to do with her very adult view of the world at 3!)

She is such a wonder and a joy!

This year (every year she likes something new but this year it was do-able, last year it was firecrackers and rainbows...) her chosen theme was HELLO KITTY (a registered trademark of Sanrio).  I could do this!

My household, like many others around this great nation of ours is financially stessed. But, I knew that I could, with the help of my mother make this a party that she would remember, and not just because the fire trucks came! (They didn't really have to come before, but we did have 911 on speed dial and we were ready!)


With about a $50 budget (that's cake and all), I started this journey to Party-of-Awesomeness about a month in advance!

As most of you know, I moonlight over at my sisters blog (freeprintablefun.org) and I took every idea that I could from her and from the other folk's ideas that she has just hanging out over there waiting for broke aunties like me and ran with those free printables!

I found some great invitations online (not a my sister's site, but I will likely link the site that I got them from from there, but it is below this picture if you would like to grab the too!)

Kitty Invites Link

I made these jug drink labels (They were water-proof water bottle labels, I just snagged the idea and changed it up a bit to suite my needs!)  I printed up three sheets with 12 per page, cut them out, taped them on with clear box tape.  They were a big hit!

 I made a banner, there is a picture posted below, but it's really hard to see (it was quite windy yesterday in this crazy weather state..Kentucky.)  But the banner consists of the letters H, A, P, P, & Y inside of their own independent pink heart with a Hello Kitty-ish bow-tie in a corner, and then Kitty's face at the top of rectangles and below her face are the letters spelling BIRTHDAY. We just stapled them side-by-side on a long peice of white yarn, then hung it.  It was cute, but a little time consuming!

We had little "thank you for coming" bags of goodies for all of the kids, I grabbed up some things from the Dollar Tree (bracelets, whistles, candy, friendship rings) and then I put in bookmarks (one's that I had created and posted on earlier post for the Summer Reading and a few Hello Kitty one's that I created just for her day!)  There was also a little kiddy-sized two-sided fan-on-a-stick in each baggy.

Thank goodness that 8 year old kids are not really looking at the cake, just eating it!  This poor "Kitty" was a very sad knock-off!  Hey, I had food coloring, white icing and sandwich bags with a corner a piece cut out!  LOL! I gave it my best! Honest!

We pulled it all together with pink plates and spoons (Dollar Tree), white plastic table clothes (Walmart), pastel pink candles (including the "8" candle) from the Dollar Tree, and then some pink, white, black and a few red (we had the red and black left over from last year) balloons that we filled with helium.  

It was a HUGE hit!  Total cost (missing a few receipts, so it's a ball park price) : Rounded up...$37.00  WOW! :)

She and her friends had a blast! (And I'll bet that it never occurred to any of them that Shelley's aunt, and her grandma-mom were total cheapskates!)

*Hello Kitty is owned by Sanrio*