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I'm organising a 5 yr olds party and would love to do something different to the standard crap party bag. Only problem is I have no ideas!

Party is for 5 yr old boy in a playbarn type place with a mix of girls and boys. And obviously something good value but useful would be fab. Any ideas anyone?

Ah but kids love party bags...... it may look like crap to you but it's a treasure trove to them

I put a couple of things like this in or this connect 4 type game plus a small bag of sweets or a look, piece of cake and you're done!

we got a totally fab one the other day - a little square of material with a present, cake and balloon tied inside, attached onto a stick - like a Dick Whittington pouch! They all looked so cute with them over their shoulders.

The book people do some great packs of books that work out about £1 a book. One of those with a slice of cake would be grand

When my dd turned 5 I did one of those really large bubble wands (sale at Tescos) and a little bag of choc coins. Plus a piece of cake. Everyone happy!

I have a friend who buys a pack of books from the Book People and just gives a book, balloon, cake and a mini pack of haribo. Kids seem happy. Mums seem happy and it works out quite cheaply. She runs a mums and tots group so organises parties of varying types fairly often.

Rush of blood - great minds!

Bake gingerbread in the shape of farm animals with the number 5 iced on them. Stick them in small plastic bags with ribbons tied around them - much better than all those bloody plastic toys and sweets.

The Book People are doing a pack of 36 books for £15 at the moment- I bought one for my dc's party in March and will give each guest a book and a bar of chocolate (most supermarkets are selling selection boxes for pennies just now so I bought loads).

I also got a sheet of 50 stickers from Ebay for a couple of pounds- they say thank you for coming to X's party so I'll wrap the books up and put the sticker on.

I'm going to put all the chocolate in a box and do a lucky dip at the end. I think this works out cheaper than a load of plastic toys and I know my dc would rather a book than the goodies they normally get at parties

Another vote for books but not thought of the selection boxes - great idea!

I go to poundland/99p shop and see what they have. They often have buckets and spades, I have undone the packaging on them, put some sweets in and tied up again, job done. Also sometimes they have craft bags, again just undo, add sweets (maybe not for boys), boxes of grow your own veg - kindof farm related. Or just get some plant pots, maybe decorate them with stickers or paint and put some seeds in. Also sometimes poundland have cups/ beakers, you can add some sweets and cake.

This year dd (who will be 7) will be decorating fairy houses (mini bird boxes) and that will become the 'party bag' with a few sweets and other bits added. I have done standard 'tat' bags, and the kids do like them, but the items in them usually cost more than a pound, and I think a bucket and spade set gives more play than a few plastic items which break quickly.

Have a look at some of the sales on line . I just got paint your own photo frames for dd1's party bags for £1.25 each from letterbox with some sweets and cake. Job done.

My dc's were once given a small sunflower plant in a colourful pot each to take home instead of a party bag. They loved them. Not sure if this would work at this time of the year though!

Wow, thanks for the ideas. Like the book idea and guess I need a trip to the local pound shop.

Sparkleandshine - OH's comment was "but kids love the crap".

I didn't do party bags. I put a note on the invite that we would be making a donation to our local hospital's neo-natal ward instead.

Recently we have had books (colouring and reading), mini footballs and those fancy bath ducks.

We made tshirts for each guest to wear for the party and then take home. Each one was personalised with their name, brought a 5 pack of white t shirts from matalan for £5 then printed out the names on sheets from eBay.

Is there a theme to the party/play barn? Themed bags work well. We have had bubble wands, or a book, or a football (cheapy one - they played with them all party and then took one each home), or a cookie cutter and a wooden spoon (cooking party). I have done small cuddly toy (worked out <£1 each) in a bag, a themed rubber duck (you can get pirate ones, chef ones, you name it... buy from ebay rather than party stores, about 50p each), things they have made at the party, you name it - it becomes less "just a bag of stuff" if it is tied into the party theme. It helps if you have time/energy to make fabric bags as the bag itself becomes part of the "present" IYSWIM (and a metre of cheap fabric costs about the same as a pack of bags).

Mixed sweets (like Dolly Mixtures) wrapped in a cellophane bag and tied with ribbon go down well in our part of the world.

Buy one of the big sets of books from thebookpeople.co.uk and the give each kid one in a paper bag. Usually works out about £1 each. Add in some sweets and you are sorted.

Make/buy pinata, fill it with whatever you prefer, but your DH is right, kids DO love crap, but useful crap, like fancy rubbers, pencils note pads, natural sweets, ballons etc might not feel quite so bad - give them all a bag, let them line up, beat crap out it with bat + then scramble around filling their own party bags - DD still talks about that as been her favourites + says her friends still talk about it

Don't make the pinata too cute though, dd1 still talks about the horse pinata at the end of someone's horse theme party when she was nearly 5 and why on earth you would want to hit a horse like that. She remembers that, not the horse ride she had there!

LOL duracell that does make perfect sense,

but I'm remembering the last one we did when DD was a bit older (7) - HSM/Disco themed party & I made a giant silver painted disco ball pinata, - covered it with giant sequins & pictures of HSM Characters - it was actually quite disturbing, as all the DCs, especially the boys took very obvious pleasure in beating the crap out of the HSM faces with a baseball bat & thats the one they still talk about

The children at our next party are taking home an inflatable guitar that they'll have played with at the party. They cost roughly £1 each on Amazon.

For DD's last party, I dispensed with the plastic tat and just gave each child a bag of sweets. Our theme was Teddy Bears Picnic so I tied a little reflective teddy bear keyring to the bag. The kids were thrilled