Personalized Party Favors | Family Economics

By Cathe

Now that my children are teenagers, we don’t host birthday parties like we used to. But when they were elementary age, there were many mid-to-large group parties either at our home, party facilities, restaurants or public parks. One trend that is quite popular at children’s birthday parties are party favors, or party bags for each guest. The cost of party bag contents can quickly add up and take over the event budget. More often than not, bags also tend to be full of candy and plastic trinkets that ultimately end up in the floor of the family car.

Fun alternatives to the standard issue party favors are personalized items, such as custom gifts with each guest’s name. Children love seeing their name on things! And, if the party-goers are old enough, let them personalize the favors themselves as an activity.

When personalizing items by hand, an easy and whimsical way to write the names (whether you have good handwriting or not), is to write each name as simply as possible adding large dots to the ends of every line drawn.

These are just a few of the many things that make wonderful personalized party favors:

• Giant bounce balls, baseballs or rubber balls
• Packaged homemade cookies
• Pencil sets
• Craft store T-shirts with custom iron-on or painted graphics
• Colorful water bottles or travel cups
• Personal-size chalkboards or dry erase boards
• Yo-yos or flying discs
• Jump ropes (add names to the wooden handles)
• A fun set of brown paper lunch sacks with names and graphics (printed on your desktop printer)
• Beaded jewelry made with letter beads.
• Custom stationery designed by your child
• Beach or sandbox toys
• Set of name stickers printed to office supply labels
• Totes and book bags
• Lunch bags
• Pillow cases (perfect for slumber parties)
• Books with personalized bookmarks
• Baking or tool aprons
• Growth charts, Girl-specific growth chart

What personalized party favors have you made for a party?