A Low-Cost Wiggles Party

As the mom of two young children I now don the hat of party planner. This is something I truly enjoy. It gives me a chance to be creative and do something nice for my children. It can be a little challenging to be true to the theme while keeping an eye on the budget, but I believe the spirit of the party and celebrating the guest of honor is the true essence of the celebration.

My most recent endeavor was my son's 3^rd birthday. Being a big fan of Nemo, Shrek and the Wiggles I gave him his choice. He picked the Wiggles. Although I enjoy each of these characters I was pleased with his choice because there is so much variety with the Wiggles from which to draw inspiration for good party ideas.

So I pulled out my party planning worksheet and started my lists. Yes, I have a party planning worksheet. I do a lot of brainstorming before finalizing my plans so I need a way to keep track of all my ideas and decisions. I won't bore you with all of the ideas I came up with. I'll just list the ones I followed through with.

Guest List
Because my husband and I have a large combined family - 32 people, which simply includes our parents, my grandmother, our siblings, their spouses and children - we reserve our guest list for them. I'm not sure what we will do when my children are old enough to request that their friends attend their birthday parties. That is a decision - and an article - for another day.

Invitations
I like to create my own invitations. For this party I rewrote the lyrics to "Hot Potato" so that it now begins, "It's my birthday, it's my birthday! I'm turning three, I'm turning three..." Then I found some Wiggles graphics on the internet. I used my word processing package to pull everything together and in no time at all had a pretty cool invitation. It isn't professional, but I think it looks good. I'm not sure that it costs any less than buying store bought invitations, but since I generally have paper and ink on hand I don't think it costs any more than the alternative. I printed the invitations and mailed them three weeks before the party. Since I already had paper, ink and envelopes the cost for stamps was less than $5.00.

Decorations
I found Wiggles decorations and tableware at several online party stores and internet auction sites, but minding the budget I decided to simply use the Wiggles color scheme for most of the decorating. That meant red, purple, yellow and blue plates, napkins, streamers, etc. I printed several coloring pages from the Wiggles website to supplement as posters and table decorations - all I had to do was color them. That wasn't a problem since my kids and I often color together. I also purchased a few dozen small beach balls from Oriental Trading to be used in place of balloons. That way the kids could play with them and I felt I was providing a safer alternative for the toddlers in the group. I shopped around for other inexpensive props at dollar and discount stores related to Wiggles characters and songs. For example, I found an inflatable monkey for the song "The Monkey Dance". I also found items related to pirates, guitars and a red car. The beach balls, streamers and props cost $22.00.

Food
Because the Wiggles have several songs about food and Anthony Wiggle is known for his appetite, the menu was easy to put together. It consisted of pasta salad (cold spaghetti), roasted potatoes (hot potatoes), hot dogs with one end sliced into thin strips (looks like and octopus), fresh bread ("Dough! Dough! Dough!"), banana pudding parfait (mashed bananas), and fruit salad. We added hamburgers and baked beans since it was a backyard barbecue event. I was able to buy many of the food items cheaply by using coupons and shopping during the Memorial Day sales at the local grocery stores.

Cake
I decided to make a cake myself. I used a 13x9 pan, my favorite cake mix and my favorite canned frosting. The Wiggles logo was easy enough to recreate with colored icing. I attached Wiggles stickers to toothpicks (sticker on one side, colored paper on the other for backing) and inserted them in the cake for added decoration. The cost was just under $10.00.

Goody Bags
The goody bags for the kids were fun to shop for. I was able to find theme-appropriate treats at Oriental Trading. I purchased bubbles in which the bottle is in the shape of a pirate's treasure chest (think Captain Feathersword), dog bone-shaped lollipops (Wags the Dog), rose-shaped lollipops (Dorothy the Dinosaur) and rubber balls with stretchy "legs" that resemble octopuses (Henry the Octopus). I put all the items in small, brown lunch bags and tied them with Wiggles colored ribbon. I already had the bags and the ribbon. The goodies cost $2.50 per child.

Games
In addition to the normal backyard games to keep the guests busy, I added some Wiggle-related fun including Pin-the-Arms-on-Henry the Octopus (made out of cardboard and construction paper) and Hot Potato (using a soft football pillow for the potato). We had a dance area where the kids grooved to their favorite Wiggles songs. Several adults proved they were young at heart by showing off their dance moves as well. This was free. I simply used items I had on hand.

That's it. Luckily my family is pretty laid back and likes the simple things in life. It allows me to plan a party with a few special touches that don't have to be expensive or grandiose - just fun and entertaining. As my children grow, I hope they gain an appreciation for the time our family spends together at these parties as well as for the love that goes into creating special memories for them.