Birthday Party!! - welcome activity

See this crazy kid?  She had a birthday.  11 years old and full of spunk.  She invited 15 friends over (15!!!)  for her party.  I gave her a budget and said she could invite as many as she could within her dollar amount.  We did an amazing job for under $65.  And that included EVERYTHING.

One way we stayed on budget was NOT to have dinner.  It seems all birthday parties include pizza now.  Well, we cut that out.  We started the party at 7 pm and went till 9.  Post dinner, and late enough for a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds to feel cool.

Now I love a beautifully staged pinterest worthy party as much as the next mom.  But I have to be honest.  It's not me.   When I have only a certain amount of $, I prefer spending it on the activities, not the decor.  We did make some cute pom poms from tissue paper, and a darling banner.  But picture worthy, probably not.  ;)

So this week I wanted to share some of the fun things we did for the party.

Today, our WELCOME activity!

The girls all tend to trickle in at different times, so we decided to start by painting some picture frames.  I got these at Michaels for $1 each.  We had stickers to put on them, also.

When the girls were done painting (some were speedy, some were slow) we moved on to the picture studio.

I was a bed sheet on top of our TV.  Perfect, right?

I got my mustache and lips printables from here.  We just taped them on a wooden skewer.  

Even my little one had a ball with them!

The plan was to print off the photos during the rest of the party.  They could bring home their frames with a fun pic.  That didn't actually happen, though.  The frames were still so wet, we brought them over to all the girls the next day.

This party was all smiles!  Stay tuned for tomorrow - more fun had by all!