Spring Birthday? Pull Together A Quick & Inexpensive Indoor Garden Party

Are you looking for an easy and fun spring birthday party celebration for elementary school-age children? Browse these ideas and pick and choose what works for your spring birthday girl or boy. You can grab supplies for a garden party at the craft and dollar stores and be set up and ready to host after an hour or two of prep.

Garden Party Decor Ideas

Twisted paper streamers from ceiling to floor. Tape colored party streamers to the ceiling where it meets the wall and then twist, twist, twist each one and tape it to the bottom of the wall just above the floor. Run a dozen or more of these a few inches apart for a celebratory backdrop. Try two tones of the same color, like green, or go for colors that match your party theme. Perhaps decorate the wall behind your food buffet or find an empty wall to use as a photo booth backdrop.

Rainbow wall. Purchase balloons in rainbow colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Use primary colors or pastels to match your party theme. Blow up 4-6 balloons of each color and tape them to the top of the wall, just beneath the ceiling in rainbow order. Next, tuck matching color streamers underneath balloons and twist each before attaching to the bottom of the wall.

Garden Party Indoor Activity Ideas

Tape a large plastic tablecloth to the floor and cover a kitchen table or long folding table with another. Put supplies in the middle of the table with enough room for guests to work on projects around the table. A checked plastic tablecloth that matches your color theme will look great on an activity table. When creating party crafts, start activities early to allow for drying time before guests depart.

• Fairy Gardens Provide shallow plant liners, plastic planters or dollar store trays, potting soil, planter moss, glass beads, small polished stones, wooden houses, alyssum starts, plastic animals and figures.
• Custom Birdhouse Provide craft-sized wooden birdhouses with hanging strings already attached, child-safe craft paints, paintbrushes, glass beads, buttons, other ephemera and a non-toxic, water-based crafting glue.
• Potted Flower Planters Provide colored planting pots with liners, potting soil, plant starts such as pansies, alyssum or fuchsia, glass beads or stones and popsicle sticks for each guest’s name.

Garden Party Food and Drink Ideas

Let guests graze instead of having a sit-down meal. For longer parties, set aside time for food breaks. The night before, freeze ice cubes with mint leaves or strawberry slices inside cubes. Serve homemade lemonade with lemon and lime slices. Veggie and fruit cups look tempting in short, translucent plastic cups.

• Veggie cups Cherry tomatoes, carrots, celery, broccoli, pea pods, jicama.
• Fruit cups Red and green grapes, strawberries, tangerine slices, honeydew melon chunks, watermelon chunks, cantaloupe chunks, kiwi slices.
• Goldfish crackers and pretzel stick cups

Garden Party Cake Ideas

• Carrot Cake Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Pinchofyum.com
• Terra Cotta Frosted Mini-cakes. Marthastewart.com
• Quick Dirt Pudding Cups with Gummy Worms. Ohnuts.com

Party Games with A Garden Twist

• Throw Paper “Flies” Through A Spider Web Use a bedroom or other out-of-the-way door. Use blue painter’s tape to make a spider web out of the top two-thirds of a doorway, sticky-side facing guests. Don’t take the tape to the floor or kids will be tempted to run through the web. Decorate the door frame with plastic spiders. Using old newspapers, have kids crumble newspaper into balls and take turns trying to throw them through holes in the web. Make the holes in the web the appropriate challenge for the age of guests and pre-tear newspaper into throwable sizes. Each guest throws until the paper ball supply is exhausted. Take down plastic spiders to award as rewards afterward.
• Pin the Ladybugs on The Flower Draw a large flower with felt markers on poster board and tape it to the wall. Or cut out construction paper pieces and use a glue stick to compose a flower on poster board. Print out clipart ladybugs, and glue-stick them to adhesive foam sheets. Cut into squares ahead of time. Use bandanas as blindfolds. Peel backing off when it’s each child’s turn. Spin child and point in direction of the flower. The ladybug closest to the center of the flower wins.
• Bee Toss Purchase yellow pom-poms, plastic googly eyes and a black marker at the craft supply store. Stick two googly eyes onto each pom-pom and draw two black lines across each to resemble Bumble Bees. Line up plastic or terra cotta flowerpots six inches from a wall and fill halfway with plastic toys, fruit leather or small bags of gummy chews. Adjust distance from targets depending on the age of guest. Let guests take 5-10 turns to toss a bee in a pot and win prizes.

Non-candy Favor Ideas

Find favor supplies at the dollar or craft store. Use grosgrain or burlap ribbon to tie items together.

• Seed packets in a colored planting pot with a wooden garden marker.
• Gardening gloves with seed packets.
• Disposable berry pint with strawberry starters and wooden garden marker.
• Small garden shovel with seed packets.
• Garden-theme mugs from the dollar store with berry tea packets.
• Small pull-tie bag with seed bombs. Mix seed bomb matrix with local wildflower seeds one week ahead of party.
• Pull-tie bag filled with rubber snakes, plastic spiders and bugs.
• Small fairy doll, ready to move into her fairy garden.

In a high-sugar world, this low-sugar party does not lack sweetness and may even spark interest in taking better care of the earth. These party suggestions work well indoors, but if guests get to go outside and shake some ya-yas out, that’s a bonus.