Creative Birthday Party Inspiration:

We asked our Facebook readers to share some of their favorite or most unusual birthday party ideas. We received some great suggestions that you can use as inspiration when planning your next birthday party!

Three Amazing Themed Parties

We’ve crowned reader Emily Kerstein as the Party Queen for the meticulous detail of her themed birthday parties. Go ahead. Try these ideas at home.

“I’ve done nearly all of my kids’ parties at home.  My kids get so excited; they usually start planning 11 months in advance! I try to build the parties around an interest or hobby about which they want to teach their friends. Elements I usually include are invitations that rhyme or are parodies of song lyrics, DIY costumes, crafts, snacks and themed games. The parties usually last about two hours.

Dolly & Me Luncheon

For my daughter’s 5th birthday, we had a Dolly & Me Luncheon at our home. About 10 girls attended. Each brought her own doll (which was adorable since so many of the girls had dolls that looked just like themselves).  We set up long tables in our basement with place settings for the girls and their dolls.

The dolls sat in slings made from napkins beside their girls. The dolls’ places were set with miniature plastic teacups, plates, napkins and silverware (all from Dollar Tree) nearly identical to the place settings that were set for the girls.  The girls ate hot dogs, sandwiches of strawberry cream cheese and saltines, fruit cocktail, juice from teacups, and cupcakes. The dolls ‘ate’ miniatures of the same meals. The birthday girl’s older brothers were ‘butlers’ who waited on the little girls and their dolls.

After lunch, the girls played games, including freeze dancing with their dolls, musical chairs, and the like. Every girl got prizes for participating in the games. The prizes included miniature cakes made from tea candles, miniature gift boxes made from gift-wrapped blocks, and other such items to add to their doll’s accessories. Each girl took home her doll’s place setting and game prizes. We also broke open a girl-sized piñata and a doll-sized piñata.

Maker Space Party

For my son’s 9th birthday, we turned our basement into a maker space.

We set up tables in our basement with scissors, tape, cards with building suggestions  (i.e., a catapult, robot, zip line, boomerang) and tons of building materials (paper clips, rubber bands, cotton balls, ping pong balls, egg cartons, popsicle sticks, cardboard, toilet paper rolls, crepe paper, wire —- probably about 50-100 different options).

Guests were allowed about 45 minutes to tinker and then presented their invention to the group. Then we had DIY cupcakes; guests were given plain frosted cupcakes and added their own toppings. There were about 20 toppings to choose from, including candies, sprinkles, cereal, cookies, etc.

After cake, guests competed to build a structure that would protect a raw egg tossed from our deck.

Greek Mythology Party

My son is obsessed with Greek mythology.  For his 8th birthday, we had a Greek mythology themed party at home.

Upon arrival, guests took a quiz to determine which Greek hero they identified with most. (We referenced Greek heroes instead of Greek gods to avoid offending guests who may have a religious objection.) Guests were divided into two teams, one for those who identified with Athena and Zeus and another for those who identified with Poseidon and Artemis.

Guests made their own togas from dollar store tablecloths and their own laurel leaf crowns by gluing fabric leaves to dollar store headbands. Then the teams competed in Olympic Games such as:

• Medusa Tag: Guests froze if ‘Medusa,’ represented by a guest wearing a snake-covered wig, tagged them while at the same time attempted to defeat Medusa by stealing her wig (thus decapitating the gorgon).

• Achilles’ Heel: Guests tied balloons to their ankles and tried to stomp/break the other team’s balloons while protecting their own.
• The Labyrinth: Teams grasped each other’s hands randomly and competed to untangle themselves without letting go of hands before the other team.
• Toilet Paper Togas: Teams competed to make the best toga for an adult chaperone using rolls of toilet paper.
• Apollo’s Archery: An archery competition to shoot plastic arrows through hoops.
• Icarus ‘don’t fly too close to the sun’: Guests rushed to grab gold coins from the center of a plastic ‘sun’ made from a round yellow table cloth before the music stopped and they were caught still in the yellow ‘sun.’
• They defeated a cyclops piñata and ate Cyclops cupcakes.

The winning team received Olympic ‘gold’ medals. All guests took home their togas, laurel leaf crowns, plastic archery sets, and piñata candy.”

Super-hero Party

“The most unusual was when I was Spider-man for my son’s fourth birthday. We also hired Captain American one year.”—Jen Handsel

Midsummer Night’s Dream Party

“I had a Midsummer Night’s Dream-themed party for my daughter’s ‘Fairy First Birthday’. I had a Baby Lit Midsummer Night’s Dream book that I used as a guestbook, a butterfly piñata and themed food like fairy fruit wands, unicorn cut-out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and her cake was woodland themed – it looked like the rings in a cut tree.”—Jessica Sneeringer