B-B-B-Batman

Since AD is in preschool this year he had his very first birthday party with friends on Saturday.

We went with a Batman theme for a couple different reasons. The first reason is that he got the Imaginext Batcave last year for Christmas and it is one of his favorite toys. The second reason is that I was given some free Batman napkins. Yep, I planned the boy's birthday around some free napkins.

AD and I went to the store to find some invitations to send out for his birthday. The Batman invites were $3.99 for 8. We were inviting his entire class so we would have needed 3 packages for a total of $11.97 + tax. I felt that was a little steep so we made our own.

I freehanded a bat symbol, traced it and cut them out of card stock we already had.



Cost of invites = free.

When I was trying to come up with some games to play a couple different friends suggested capes and one of them suggested decorating masks. I printed out a Batman mask template and traced and cut out the masks on white cardstock so that they could decorate them. I did buy new cardstock because I didn't have white on hand. I also got some elastic to attach to the masks.



Cost of cardstock and elastic = $4.30.

For the capes I bought some fleece blankets that were $2 a piece. I originally thought I would be able to get 3 capes out of a blanket but since these are 4 and 5 year olds I was able to get 6 capes out of blanket. I had a hard time figuring out how to close the capes and finally I decided to just sew on some ribbon.



Cost of capes = $4.50.

For activities we decorated the masks, played Batman, Batman, Robin (Duck, Duck, Goose), and Pin the Bat-a-rang on Batman. I had a hard time finding a Batman poster but I did find some Batman color pages. I had our 8 year old color on in and that is what we used for our poster.



Cost for the activities = $3.00.

We had the party at lunch time. We feed them hot dogs in the crockpot, chips, and applesauce. I also made the cupcakes using some Batman confetti that I had found. I taped the images on to toothpicks and stuck them in the cupcakes. We had lemonade to drink.



Total cost for food = $14.50.

The paper products we bought at the dollar store. I actually bought more than I needed. So total cost for what we needed for the party = $5.00.

Goodie Bags

I know we could have used the capes and masks and their "prizes" but I wanted to get them a bag with stuff to take home. We put fruit gushers, straws, stickers, and candy in them.

Total for goodie bags = $13.50.

So the total for our Batman birthday party was $44.80. All of my information is based on 12 children which brings my total per child to $3.75. I am sure there are odds and ends that I forgot so it is probably more around $4.00 a child.

I am sure that if I had tried I could have done it cheaper but I think for 12 children it was pretty cost effective. Plus we had one happy Batguy.