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Do-it-yourself Party Favors and More…
By Tice Swackhamer
Creator of Baby Draw, The Baby Shower Game You’ll Love to Play!
www.babydraw.com
Taking care of the party favors and prizes for the shower you’re hosting can be simple and fun. Your guests aren’t coming to the shower to walk away with armloads of gifts, so small mementoes that cost very little are fine. The same party stores that carry goodie bag items for children’s birthday parties sell a wide assortment of key chains, candy, mini pacifiers, pens, magnets and more. Another solution is to make your own favors:
- Print up some “Certificates of Merit” for game winners. Depending on the games you play, these can be for the person with the best memory, best guess, most hysterical drawing and so on. Be creative and come up with certificates most suitable to the games you’re playing. Leave a blank line on the certificate for the person’s name.
- Print out and laminate your own bookmarks. These can be as elaborate as a collage of photos (people, animals, nature…) or just designs from clip art.
- Homemade cookies, brownies or other sweets wrapped in translucent wrapping paper present very nicely as a prize or favor. Popcorn also works, and for the more ambitious, homemade jams or breads are welcomed prizes.
- Have a Polaroid or digital camera on hand and take photos of the prizewinners with the guest of honor. Each prizewinner gets a photo to take home.
- If you have children who enjoy making jewelry, have them create an assortment of beaded jewelry, including necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings and key chains (just add a key ring on one end). Place all of these in a basket by the door and let your guests pick their favorites.
- Create small gift baskets with soaps, lotions and potpourri.
Find terrific ideas for more prizes, party favors and gifts at the following Websites:
“Baby Cakes” are unique gift packs made to look like cakes. There are two distributors for this product. One is Baby Cakes which takes phone orders at 1-800-586-7604. The other has a web site for ordering at Baby Cakes Inc. at www.babycakesinc.com.
www.babyts.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv Baby Ts offers gift certificates for their personalized designs on infant t-shirts, sweatshirts, rompers, teddy bears and T-shirt gifts for the whole family.
www.bridesandbabes.com/page5.html Brides and Babes baby shower favors include unique Bubble Gum Buddies, Baby Candy Climbers and sachets scented with baby dreams fragrance.
Baby Matters offers a software tool for recording information about your baby and being able to create a permanent record of this information. Available through www.parentingsolutions.com/welcome/welcome2.htm Parenting Solutions.
http://starbooks4u.com/ Star Books carries personalized books where the child becomes the star of the story along with their favorite characters. More than 25 titles available.
Tice Swackhamer is a San Francisco Bay Area freelance writer, editor and Web producer.
©2001 Tice Swackhamer. All rights reserved. Article used with permission.
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