When it comes to creating party favors for your child’s birthday, there’s never been a better time for crafters to exploit their abilities than today with the abundance of ideas, supplies and advice available. Whether going out to the brick and mortar stores for supplies or turning to the Internet for ease and convenience, the whole 
world right now is a crafter’s delight. Plus, there is no shortage of instructional videos waiting to be enjoyed.
For most of us, childhood memories of birthday parties hold a special place in our hearts. Having our moms make a homemade cake or toy is pure bliss through our young eyes. It’s only natural that as we start families of our own we want to continue the tradition. With a little creativity and craftiness, it’s fun and easy to create your own party favors for your child’s birthday party.
Keeping in mind that party favors are used as fun entertainment during the party, you also want the guests to be able to take something home to further enjoy after the party is over or to have “for keeps” as a memento. When the favor carries the theme of the party, it is made even more special.
A theme can be based on the child’s particular passion or interest. There are some familiar themes, such as:
- The cowboy theme
- Princess theme
- A favourite cartoon character
- Superheroes
- Magic and Wizardry
- Racing Cars
- Baseball or other sports
- Pirates
- Outer space and rockets
- Music
- Animals
- Circus
- Trains
From a costume will come many ideas that can be adapted as party favors, even as something for children to wear, including the birthday girl or boy. Caps, hats, scarves, tiaras, holster with scabbard or pistol, capes, magic wands are just some of the plentiful ideas. Whether making them from scratch for the more energetic and creative crafter, or taking advantage of the party stores, fabric and craft stores, or dollar stores; many of these elements can be easily obtained for little expense.
For the most part, the standard party favor is one that will carry sweet treats. After all, if a birthday party is not the venue to let-go with abandon and eat your body weight in candy, then where can you? Think theme and how you would like to deliver the goodies. Obviously for the pirate theme, miniature treasure chests or even a larger one could be located as a centerpiece with candy and booty spilling out. The idea of the individual tiny treasure chests would be something the children could take home with them.
Craft stores carry a large variety of unfinished wood pieces that have been made up to the point of finishing, allowing you to decide on their final appearance. There are small, white lunch boxes that can be decorated to follow the theme. These make excellent children’s totes.
Another classic party favor is the one fashioned from empty toilet paper rolls, as this is a tube that can hold candies and mini-toys such as cars and plastic animals. Cover the roll with your choice of decorative paper or novelty fabric leaving enough at the ends to tie off with ribbon. They will look just like “poppers” when finished. If you plan enough in advance, personalized ribbon can be special ordered that will display the name, date, and event in bright colors and can be used wherever ribbon is needed, perhaps even as the drawstrings.
For the cowboy theme, you can introduce bags of “gold” with the gold being the candy. There are stores that carry a candy called ‘gold nuggets” and has been made to look like the real thing. While the drawstring bag is a universal concept and easily obtained pre-made from stores, these can be sewn from scratch, if you enjoy the stitching work. It’s a simple pattern from a rectangular piece of fabric that can be stitched on one side with a seam made for a drawstring at the top. Hint: There are wonderful options for braided drawstring on the ribbon aisle.
Jennifer Olney is a contributing writer for Viking.com, a site which offers a wide selection of office supplies online.