Running an effortless DIY kids Birthday party doesn’t have to be stressful. The key is in the planning. Here are my top tips for organising a sensational DIY kids Birthday party.

1) Planning

The main thing to remember is planning. Make sure nothing is left to chance. Every detail needs to be taken care of beforehand so you are free to run things on the day without worry. Picking a cool theme is important and can really help to get your creative juices flowing. A theme will help with choosing food, décor, games and music. Some popular requests I get asked for: ‘The Greatest Showman’ ‘K-Pop’ and ‘Descendants’ and ‘Pokemon’

2) Getting enough help

Don’t forget that all the mums will want to talk to you and you will be dragged from pillar to post so try to delegate as much to other people as you possibly can!! Extra pairs of hands can be used for teas and coffees, face painting /glitter, DJing, laying the table, cutting the cake, cleaning up etc. Be sure to give jobs to people beforehand so everyone knows where they stand.

3) Leave enough time to plan

Halls book out really quickly (especially for winter months) so make sure you chose a venue with good parking, lots of space for coats and bags and a separate area to prepare food/drinks. Please see my parties page for some local venue ideas ** This link has been removed until we are allowed to use halls again**. Also when purchasing items for kids Birthday party bags/decor don’t forget the most affordable online options will often carry a 3-week delivery period as standard.

4) Having a contingency plan

Make sure you have a backup for every important section of the Birthday party (do you have a spare speaker, will there be an impact on games/numbers if some people don’t show up) Also making sure you have enough content planned. Things can go much quicker than you anticipate so make sure you have twice as many game ideas as you need. Also having a few spares of anything physical for unexpected younger siblings is not a bad idea.

5) Music

Getting the music right is colossal!! (Of course, I would think that!!) It is super important to have music which the children love, queued up and ready. Make sure you create a playlist beforehand and that you have a backup on another device. Need inspiration? Download my free kids party playlist here.

6) Food

Less is more. Although it’s nice to try and get some fruit and veg into our kids, we must remember this is a party!! Unless you want a whole bin bag full of carrot sticks and cucumber just ask yourself when was the last time you had a detoxing smoothie at your BFF’s birthday party?

7) The night before

Pack everything you need the night before. Things which are easy to forget: chargers, a knife to cut the cake, bin bags, first aid kit, parent’s numbers (if you’re doing ‘drop and dash’). The morning of your party you are likely to have an insanely excitable child, plus a load of last-minute texts and phone calls asking why/where/when from all the mums in your WhatsApp group. Pre-empt this with a friendly message the night before reminding everyone the time, location and dress code.

Hosting a fabulous DIY kids Birthday party is great fun and something you and your children will remember forever 🙂

I hope this will help you to prepare the most fantastic party ever and as always I am super keen to hear your ideas or feedback on what did and didn’t work out, but if the thought of all this just fills you with dread and you want to outsource to someone who’s done it all before, we’d love to hear from you 🙂

If you are reading this in 2020/21 you may be under lockdown restrictions still. If you’d like to read further about best practise when hosting on Zoom, here is another blog post. 

Thanks for listening,