The Wildling Within

So I wrote this post back at the end of January and totally forgot to publish it… so here it is, a bit belated.  Enjoy!

E turned 5 a few weeks ago, and we decided to have our first proper birthday party for friends at a roll play centre.  Having never had a “proper” birthday party for either of our boys (always birthday teas at home with family) we suddenly had to think about what to provide for a modern party, which led to us thinking about something so commonly associated with birthday parties… the party bag!

Party bags have bothered me for a while.  They’re usually little plastic bags filled with cheap plastic toys that last 5 minutes, a balloon, and copious amounts of sugar.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a sweet as much as any child (serious sweet tooth) but party bags seem to take this to the extreme, and why fill it with things that’ll give minutes of fun and a lifetime of environmental damage?!  Probably because that’s what we’ve always had, and thought we should copy.  Time to break the mould!

Some of our favourite party bags received to date have included shells, rocks/gems and ‘plant your own’ kits.  They give far more satisfaction than any of the little plastic toys, and tickle plant aside (we’re rubbish at keeping stuff alive) we still have and enjoy all the other lovely gifts we’ve been given.  With these amazing party bag gifts in mind, and in the spirit of my new years push for a more zero waste lifestyle, I decided to attempt our very first zero waste (or as close to as I could/dared) party bags.

Here’s what we ended up with…

I’d already at this point decided to go with a nature/wildlife/woodland theme and I’d also decided we needed to have some kind of book in the bag, so the first step was to find books that fitted that theme.  This was an obvious choice for me… the Beatrix Potter books.  I grew up loving these stories.  I also remembered being totally charmed by the size of the books, they’re the perfect size for little hands.  To make this cost effective I ended up ordering the book set from Book People and breaking it down, plus this means we either have spares for another party, or I get to keep them and re-live my childhood (more likely).

Now here’s where I admit I was very late getting started with these bags.  I ended up ordering packets of wild flower seeds from a wedding favour company on ebay (waystosaythankyou) and paying extra to get them shipped in time.  The packets were lovely though and each had a personalised birthday message and the phrase “wildflower seeds for the butterflies and bee’s” printed on the front.  The butterflies and bee’s will hopefully benefit and the packet can be composted or recycled, yay!

At this point I needed some kind of toy or play thing to keep the kiddos happy, cue a trip to Pinterest.  I love Pinterest, its a great way to find ideas and tutorials for things which you otherwise wouldn’t think of yourself.  Just beware, it gets super addictive and time consuming!  Anyhoo, whilst browsing for DIY toys I came across a blog post by ‘Anna Branford‘ about making little Wardorf/Steiner inspired pocket dolls and decided these would be the perfect thing to finish off my bags.  What I forgot to account for was my perfectionist nature and the sheer time it takes to create anything, especially when you’re making 12-14 of the things!  I finished the last of my forest folk (minus a few scarves) as we walked out the door to go to the party!  My tutorial for the forest folk coming soon…

Lastly the party bags…  after spending so much time sourcing/making eco friendly gifts for the bags it seemed a shame just to bung it all in the same old plastic bags that get used all the time.  Cue another trip to Pinterest!
I found a tutorial for making little paper gift bags and decided to give them a go.  Having just had Christmas, I’d saved all the paper packaging from parcels we’d had delivered by post.  There are lots of companies now trying to use more environmentally friendly packaging, my favourite toy ones so far being Conscious Craft and Babi Pur.  This went in my favour as the little stack of paper wrapping used to protect the kids Christmas gifts turned out to be the perfect size to make my bags!  Tutorial for gift bags HERE!

If you’re planning your own party bags, other things you could consider putting in are:
*Crayons/pencils/paint (why not recycle some old crayons and melt them into new shapes)
*Recycled Paper pad
*Little wooden animals/building blocks etc
*Bake your own kit (pre weighed ingredients in a little glass jar)
*Paint a pet rock kit
*Plant your own kit
*Origami kit
If you think of anything else why not leave a comment down below, it might help someone out!

The feedback for these bags has been overwhelmingly good (phew!).  Sadly I don’t have any pictures of the bags made up as I was still stuffing things in them on the way to the party!

Time to start planning what we’ll do/have for R’s party in May, hopefully I can at least get his party bags finished before getting in the car!