Goodie Bag Ideas

For my daughter's birthday, I let her go to the dollar store and pick out a bunch of fun toys/balls/etc. that she would want. We let the kids play with them at the party and then we let each friend take one as they were leaving. I think it worked out well to let them take what they wanted...

Good luck!

we got some stuff from hobby lobby. they were like 3 for a dollar things. You could also check out the dollar stores too.

did you look at any of the prefilled bags. I got those for my sons first birthday. Last year I just went through and found a bunch of things that fit the theme we were doing. You can always give kids balls and novelty jewlery.

I've done a CD of my daughters favorite songs with a couple of her favorite treats/stickers. On the cover I put Thank you for coming to Macy's Birthday!

A lot of the mothers called me later and thanked me for it.

I agree with a couple of the other responders who said a lot of the goody bag stuff is junk that you end up throwing away. I did things like this-buy small wooden things for them to paint, add a piant brush and buy the empty small paint containers and fill them with all the extra kid paint you have at home! The kids enjoyed going home and doing something wit their party treat. Or I would get water bottles and fill them with crayons and stickers and kids could decorate the bottle with the stickers. The kids always got crayons as I would go to one of the teacher stores and buy a huge sheet of paper (comes on a roll) and I would tape it to the table-this way kids could color on it with their new crayons while waiting for the cake-made things a little less crazy. Hope those ideas help!

A great resource is US toys on Quebec and County line they sell little things in bulk. They also have your party favors.

I think goody bags have a tendency to add up real fast. I personally dislike goody bags because it always seems like it's a bunch of junk that I end up throwing out. I started buying 1 item that fit's with my theme. For example, my daughter had a tea party and I found parasols at Michaels on Clearance for $3 a piece, they all went home with one and the mom's still tell me ho they still have and use the parasol! For my son I found big dinosaurs on clearance, they all got to pick 3 dinosaurs, and it cost me $12. If you have a theme, or even if you don't just look around at and see if there is something you can just set on a table and as they go out the door they can grab. Or you could find a craft from Oriental trading they they do at the party and then that becomes their favor. I did bug boxes for my youngest (ladybug party)they got to take home the bug box, a magnifying glass, and ladybugs that they caught (it was a summer party., but you can get creative with how you fit teh favor into the theme of the party. My daughter went to a party, where they decorated giant cupcakes. They brought the cupcake home (she served cake at the party, and their favor was the apron they wore while they decorated (she got them at Oriental Trading)Sorry, I know this is lengthy! I hope this helps.

I've always been a big fan of a single 'nicer' item vs. a goodie bag filled with junk. I've done this twice, and actually had parents tell me what a great idea it was. One year I gave out those rubbery/squishy dinosaurs (filled with sand maybe?), since my son's b-day party was dino themed, and this past year we had a snake themed party so I gave out sand filled fabric covered snakes. The former was fairly innexpensive ($1-2 each?), but the snakes were more like $3.50 each, and we had more kids (also did a combined party this past year), but they were very nice.

I have to say that I think the whole goodie bag thing is WAY out of hand. When my son turned two last March, I started fretting about the goodie bag thing, and finally decided NOT to do it. My husband made the point that we were feeding and entertaining the children for a few hours, and feeding their parents, so we should not spend extra money (that we don't really have) on stuff that will just be thrown out.

I have to add that we are older first-time parents with only one child. (Husband is 40, I'm 43.) We have no idea when the goodie bag thing got started, but when we were children, there was no such thing. Children went to birthday parties to celebrate the child whose birthday it was, not to get a present. Call me old-fashioned but I think that sharing a birthday party with a friend helps establish respect in our children. When we have taken our son to other children's parties, we always discuss before we go that the other child is the star that day, and we need to be happy for that child. I think we do not give children enough credit or respect when we give a gift to everyone, so that no one feels left out. They can and do understand that birthdays are a special day for the individual, not necessarily for the group.

I love pinatas for this reason! I fill the pinatas full of fruit snacks, little dollar store goodies & usually some candy too-maybe (if you make them use flour, water & a bit of Elmers to make it really stick well) a pinata for each age group. Everyone gets something & it's much cheaper than goodie bags for each kid! If you're worried that everyone won't get a treat, pick up an extra box of fruit snacks (I looked for themed snacks-dino snacks for the dino bday party, batman snacks for the batman party) just in case somebody can't move fast enough. But they're always quick enough to get at least something.

You don't have to put a ton of stuff in them, and I always found great multipacks of things at party stores such as sunglasses (there is something like 6 in a pack), soap bubbles, mini yoyos, rubber balls. I always put in 2-3 inexpensive toys like that and a bit of candy, such as suckers. I always avoided candy with ingrediants such as nuts in case if allergies. If you want to separate out the girl and boy bags, you can also give the girls little bottles of nail plish or lip gloss, and the boys can get things like matchbox cars. Have a fun party!

For my 5 yr old's party, we went with the theme. It was space, so I bought some Starburst and put 3 in each bag, along with 2 snack-sized Milky Way bars. Okay, so the kids didn't get the "space" association, but my son had fun with it. We also bought robot wall stickers at the dollar store and cut the strip of them apart so each kid got one. There were eight on each strip, so that was cheap. (Hint: I wrote "wall sticker" on the back so the parents would know what it was) I also cut apart sheets of shiny star stickers so everyone got half a sheet.

I also wanted a bouncy ball "planet," but I didn't know where to find a bag of them.

My son has gotten mini slinky-type toys, chinese handcuffs, and saltwater taffy when he went to parties before. Pencils and erasers, stickers, etc. are fun, too.

I have been to a couple of parties lately where there was just some candy and a beginning reader book inside. I love the book idea rather than some junk the kids end up throwing away anyhow. These books are not too expensive and if you think about how much you may spend on other stuff it may be about the same.

Hi, sorry I didn't read through all of the others but wanted to reply real quick. What I've done is buy packages of things and break them into smaller parts. Like I'd buy cute paper in a big package, as well as packages of fun markers, and split them up into each bag. That could work for anything. The best thing would to buy things that your kids already like to do and split them up that way. Have fun!

i was going to do oriental trading this year too, but i actually found better prices at Partyland and Zurcher's. do you have a digital camera and a printer? something we did this year was to take pictures of the kids throughout the party with our digital camera and then toward the end of the party, we printed one or two pictures for each child and added them to the goody bags. i got 20 4x6 photo papers for $1 at a dollar store and the quality was fine. hope you have a great party!