To ask for your alternatives to party bags

[TheoTheopolis23]

Had the great idea of doing sweetie cones from a poster on here (they were of the opinion that the toys were plastic tat, broke easily, crap for environment etc., Plus kids only really interested in the sweets so just do sweetie cones and I thought they had a point).

This went down a treat, no pun intended; another school Mum told me she was going to copy it so there have been a few more since.

What could you do instead, rather than sweetie cones again? There's an old thread saying personalized mugs, drinks containers, t-shirts etc.
But I can't see mugs or drinks bottles for less than £7/8 and there are hopefully going to be 40 kids. T-shirts - I thought you weren't supposed to put kids names on t-shirts for safety, and I wouldn't know what characters etc they're all into so ...

I can't see most of the parents going in for the plant a seed etc type stuff.

Personalised chocolate bars looked like a goer, but I'm hoping to do chocolate fountains and giving them a chocolate bar straight after is kinda more of the same.

Has anyone done anything else that went down well?

Thank you 🙏

I did bottles (colourful milk bottle style, with a stripy straw) from Home Bargains - so only £2 each - filled with a few packs of Haribo and some other bits from Home Bargains/Tesco also! I.e. stationery packs that can be divided, 10 fun paper straws for £1 that can be split…
They seemed to go down well but I only had about 10 kids so not too expensive. Fairly cheap per capita though!

I gave a charity shop book and some cake

Decorate your own party bags....job lot plain white cotton party bags, 3 fabric pens inside and label with 'please decorate me'.

My 4 year old went to a party and they gave out paint your own money boxes, there was a choice of animals to pick from, went down well.

We got a friendship bracelet making kit at the one we went to recently. Went down well.

Worthy? There was plenty of fun before plastic and excessive consumerism you know.

It’s pretty cruel really saddle our kids and their kids with yet more polluting shite and condition them to think it’s ok when we know better.

I learnt this recently so hope helpful...
Helium is an important medical resource and is depleting globally and shouldn't be used for balloons (non essential needs) etc.

Have a fun party :)

Stereotyping from a young age - perfect 👍🏻

Cones/bags of sweets are very popular around my way and little waste. We did do pencils with a novelty rubber on the end and pencil cases bought it bulk from The Works ones year. I prefer Easter birthdays as it’s perfectly acceptable to just give out a small egg!

I've done these for my daughters birthday party

www.youthandwild.co.uk/products/potion-party-bags

The things we've done that went down really well have been,
socks with a chocolate bar or bag of sweets in,
hired an ice cream van to come at the end of the party and sent everyone home with a 99,
footballs,
Those gummy pizza things that come in a box,
Tie-died t-shirts,
Bucket hats/baseball caps,
Personalised cold cups filled with slush ice.

Tie dyed 🙄 no dead t-shirts given out!

Or go retro... slice of birthday cake and a bag of chocolate buttons.

I went to one party that had 4-5 different books (lots of each type) on a table and they each picked one as they left. Son loved it. Probably the 10 for 10£ at the works or something

What’s your budget? With 40 kids it’s probably not going to be very large per child?

The kids don’t give a hoot, and I say that as someone who stopped doing party bags when we were still at the ‘whole class party’ stage. My alternative was ‘none’.

I actually find kids mugs very useful - for hot chocolate.

And they tend to get broken, kids being kids, so you always need a spare.

I'm not sure what you mean by "with scribbles from another kids party" ... I thought the idea was they personalise their own t-shirt (?)

But yes, I do wonder if they'd actually wear it much; might be more likely to wear their favourite characters than something they've decorated in a slapdash fashion.

Ha, DD’s favourite T-shirt is a cheap one she decorated in a slapdash fashion at nursery… That’s the trouble with kids: unpredictable mavericks! Give them all a turnip.

Please do no do pots with seeds in.

While they, and the other seed thingys, are an excellent idea; I just get the impression lots of the parents would not do them, they'd just be discarded (and the kids would probably find them disappointing as a leaving gift). So they're not a runner really.

Lol, typical.

I wonder could I get stencils of popular characters and they could try stencilling with fabric pens; then they might be more likely to get worn (?)

I'm also not even attempting to be "worthy".

I find the plastic tat is discarded, ignored or broken quickly most of the time.

Kids get so much so often these days that it's kinda nothing to them.

Following with interest as DD wants a party for her 5th birthday this year and I'm a complete novice. Like the idea of a lucky dip though!

Sweet cones

Not one I've done, but I saw and thought it was great. A voucher for each child for the local ice cream place. Can be for a simple cone so quite cheap.

Exactly, it's only going to be a few quid.

TENNIS BALL each

Loads of fun for every child with lots of different ways to play with it and relatively cheap

🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂