Blue's Clues Budget Birthday Party

This party was supposed to be a $0 budget. I told my BFF I could use entirely leftover or DIY decorations and  I ended up spending like $5 or $6 not counting food, (which was very minimal) and we would have eaten anyway at our regular play date game nights.
This was for my nephew's 2nd Birthday, just about everything was leftover from other parties. I decorated in under 2 hours, including finishing the cake and making the pennant banner.

Cake and Favor Table
The table runners were leftover from the Strawberry Shortcake Party. They remind me of Steve's shirt. The blue Polka Dot pennants were leftover from the Curious George Birthday Banner (the backside). 

Favors, everything inside was leftover from previous goody bags, the bags were extra from the Curious George party with stickers from my collection, The napkins were purchased for this party. cups and plates were leftover from other parties. I bought a package of paw print stamps on clearance with the napkins. 

Cake 

Food Table. The tablecloth was leftover from the Strawberry Shortcake Party

we had hotdogs, potato and pasta salads and chips, all leftover from a party we had the day before for Daytona 500

The chip bowls are Dollar Tree dog dishes

The kids loved the hot dogs and had fun playing together!

another picture of the cake

Pail cups for drinks. we had the cups and I paid $1 for a huge bag of white pipe cleaners. 

As a guest book, we all wrote messages in a Blue's Clues book I found at a thrift store. 

Curious George Birthday

My daughter LOVES Curious George, and well I love him too, so it was perfect for her 2nd Birthday Party.

I made this sign for the front door: 

And this for the gift table:

Guest Book and Party hats. The sign says "When I'm older I'll be curious who was here, please write a message in my book" and "Please put on a hat". I loved the image of George floating with balloons so I wanted lots of balloons in the decor. 

Cupcakes

I had my hubby pipe a blob of frosting on each (box mix) cupcake. I cut circles out of Wilton Sugar Sheets like I did for the Poke Ball cupcakes, used the scraps for the balloon-knot triangles and put them on the frosting blobs. I accidentally smeared white frosting on one and it looked like a shimmer on the  balloon so I added one to each of them. The ribbon was poked into the frosting after they were placed on the stand. After they were all in place, I gathered the ribbons for George's hand. 

I got the idea from Beth Kruse Custom Creations

Shortcakes 

Idea from Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons 

we served these with a bowl of sweetened strawberries and whipped cream.

Oreo truffles

Idea from Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons

On the bottom were banana muffins with cream cheese frosting and banana candies.

Savory {Monkey} Bread

Hundley Hot Dogs

Can I just say I love our hot dog roller, easy to serve, cook more after some have had theirs and great flavor! 

Jumpy Squirrels Mixed Nuts

Ice Cream Bar (pre-scooped the night before and stored in the freezer until time into paper cups from a restaurant supply store- best idea ever!) Had all the toppings for banana splits, but called them Banana Chops instead because we were using the bowls instead of boats. 

Buffet table, we just lined up crepe paper for a table runner. 

A variety of pudding flavors, Banana/vanilla, strawberry/vanilla, banana/strawberry, chocolate, chocolate/banana, ect. 

Quint's Fish Crackers (from the surprise birthday party episode)

Pisghetti's Rooftop Garden Veggies

Hand Picked Apple Slices

Renken's Bee Farm Honey and Peanut Butter Sandwiches

I didnt get a picture of the lemonade but we served "Steve's Lemonade" 

and "Barrel of Monkey Juices"

 Ellie in her Birthday Dress her Grammie Made her and a (Man in the) Yellow Hat (yellow hat + electrical tape)

#2 wreath I made out of cardboard, crepe paper and curled ribbon.

Table settings with Yellow Hat cups/plates (as seen in many places on the web). The centerpiece is bananas and red shredded paper with balloons on sticks.

Banner and Favors

The banner was made similarly to how I made the Strawberry Shortcake one but with poster letters and banana/monkey cut outs from Dollar Tree. The balloon cut-outs at either end were also from the Dollar Tree, it was my sisters idea to make it look like they were holding the banner up. 

I found these balloon cut-outs at Dollar tree but didnt know what to do with them. Last minute I got this idea because I had leftover letters from the banner. The CG logos were cut from a couple boxes of CG fruit snacks. At the top is a paper chain made from cheap event bracelets. 

The bags were for older children, the bowls were for the toddlers and baby. Inside were lollipops, raisins, animal crackers, bubbles, stickers and fruit snacks. The baby got some monkey and zebra socks from Dollar Tree and some crisp dried fruit.

Each family got a coloring book and crayons to take home. 

As I did last year, I played a slideshow of pictures of Ellie on our projection screen. I also downloaded a bunch of songs about bananas to play in the background with the Curious George movie soundtrack.  

Overall it was lots of great fun. 

Ladybug Birthday

Ellie's 1st Birthday

The welcome and goodie bag table

Guest book alternative. 

The dots will be used in scrapbook of the party.

 Simple snacks

The Cupcakes

 This is a CupcakeTree that I have used 7 times so far. It is awesome, super easy to decorate and folds flat in a thin box.

We had strawberry cheesecake, german chocolate, white (with red sprinkles and a black chocolate spot, and marionberry lemonaid cupcakes. The smash cake on top was a low sugar ladybug cake from Pink Princess Cakes. Except for the sprinkles on the head and the antenna it was all fruit sugars! We ordered a few cupcakes to go with the smash cake for the other babies that would be there. They were so very yummy!

The gift table

Pretzel ladybugs were a huge hit!

I embellished a little bib/apron for Ellie to wear over her dress.

 I also made the hair barret with an extra iron on patch from the bib.

For the edge of our driveway, I made direction signs.

The party was held in our home theater, I had a photo slideshow of Ellie playing on the screen. This is easy to do if you have a Wii and a memory card. The Wii has a slide show feature for photos saved to an SD card. I just picked my favorite pictures from birth through the day I made it and popped the card into the machine.