Garden Party for Kids

Amount of Time: 5 to 15 hours
Budget: $100 to $250
Age Group: 1 to 9 years old
Number of Guests: 5 to 15
Indoor/Outdoor: Outdoor would be best, preferably in a garden area. This is a popular summer and spring party.

Special Notes: This is a favorite party theme for children of many different ages. If the kids are really young, they may enjoy playing with their friends in the sun while their parents socialize. Older children can have lots of fun not only playing buggy games but also learning a thing or two.

A lot of the activities at this type of a party will not take long to organize, and the colors can be chosen by the birthday kid. A suggestion would be red for ladybugs, yellow for butterflies, and green for grass.

There is actually a pretty wide selection of themed partyware for this party.  Two of my favorites are at Birthday in a Box. Check out these butterfly party supplies at Birthday in a Box for your party…

…or these darling Daisy party supplies. It’s so hard to choose!

Either party pattern would look great with solid colored tableware mixed with the thematic stuff.  Add a Daisy Pinata for pure cute!

Invitations:

Use garden/bug clip art to decorate your invitations.

Cut out the invitation in the shape of a garden bug, such as a ladybug or a butterfly, and write the details on it.

Decorations:

Draw and cut out flowers and put them all over the party room or outside venue.

Hang a flower garland too.

Provide little antennae to the guests as they arrive. They can wear these at the party. You could make the antennae using pipe cleaners, pom poms, and headbands.

Purchase mock birds, bumble bees, ladybugs, and butterflies to hang down from the trees.

Set the table with a green tablecloth. If you can find grassy mats, they would also match the theme. Pick a color theme for the tableware, such as red cups and plates with black plasticware (for ladybugs), or yellow and blue cups and plates and white plasticware (for butterflies). Spread plastic ants and other critters on the party table. You could also have gummy worms out on the table as decoration.

Decorative flowerpots filled with dirt cupcakes would also be festive and fun to eat for dessert.

Tie balloons together in sets of threes and weigh them down. Or, if you are outside at a park, use balloons to mark where your party area is. Make sure to purchase a few Mylar balloons in the shape of a garden animals to keep with the theme as well.

Crafts:

Make flower necklaces. Mix flour, water, and salt into a dough, and cut it into flower and bug shapes. Bake the shapes until they are hard, and decorate them with sparkly, fluorescent paint. Put them on a string and have the kids wear them during the party.

Provide the kids with canvas garden hats, and give them markers and stickers to decorate them with. They can also wear these hats during the party.

Games/Activities:

Play Pin the Petal on the Flower.

Purchase live ladybugs (these can be found at garden supply stores), and set them free in your yard. Provide your guests with jars with fun ladybug facts written on them, and have them catch the ladybugs.

Provide watering cans for the kids to water plants with or to play with while swimming.

Blow bubbles.

Have the children decorate flowerpots. Before the party, spray paint the pots white. At the party, provide the kids with markers and stickers to decorate the pots with. Later on they can take these home with goodies inside.

Ask the guests to bring a flower to plant in the yard. This can be their present for the birthday kid.

Bury small trinkets in a sandbox, and have the children dig them up.

Have a bean bag toss and use flower pots as the target.

Menu:

Make a giant caterpillar sandwich. Use a favorite sub sandwich for the body, olives for eyes, and carrot sticks for legs.

Serve ants on a log: peanut butter on celery with raisins. If the kids don’t like celery, use graham crackers instead.

Serve raisins as ants and Cheetos as worms.

Pepperidge Farm Butterfly cookies and crackers are perfect for this party.

Make spiders out of peanut butter and/or cream cheese on Ritz crackers with raisin eyes and pretzel-stick legs.

Serve a berry salad.

Serve drinks out of a watering can. You can fill it with “bug’s juice”—lemonade or any other drink you would like to serve.

Cake:

Here’s a great dirt cake with worms from Cooks.com.

Make cupcakes and arrange them to look like a caterpillar.

Goody Bags:

Provide the kids with their little decorated flower pots or a decorated bug jar filled with goodies: little packets of gummy worms, flower seeds from your child’s birthday month, a plastic garden shovel, sheets of bug stickers, etc.

If the kids are very small, paint your child’s name and birth date on a flowerpot, plant the seeds of your child’s birth flower in it, and give it to the kids’ parents. If you don’t want to plant the flower, fill the pot with the seeds and a few small sand toys. You could also provide little healthy snacks for small children as well.  If you are pinched for time, check out this darling favor set from Birthday in a Box.

Another favor idea also comes from Birthday in a Box.  They do really cute personalized items that fit the garden theme.