Indoor Camping Party - Planetarium Stars

None of my children have birthdays during 'warm' months so I decided to do an indoor camp-'in'.  INVITES: where simple cards with the CAMP KENDIS logo(which I made on the computer with some clip art and had printed at a print shop) and party info on them.    

DECOR: This was a super fun and very inexpensive birthday party.  I bought a large roll of brown craft paper and made huge signs that said CAMP KENDIS.  When the kids and parents walked in the were greeted by a welcome sign and then I made signs to go around the house such as 'mess-hall' for the kitchen, 'outhouse/latrine' for the bathroom, etc.  I had a check-in/registration area where the kids received their pre-made printed name lanyards, which had the CAMP KENDIS logo  on them. I even had ones made for the older children who helped and I labed those 'camp counselor', etc. I wanted to do t-shirts, but to keep costs down I decided to go with this idea.  (We had over 20 kids attend)

All the tables where covered with red/white checkered picnic styled table cloths.  I placed down several ficus tress and artificial plants to make it look 'outdoorsy'. I had a nature sounds cd playing in the background. We had the fire place going and since I placed the camping theme on the invitations lots of kids and parents had on camping attire.  I purchased fake bugs and invisible thread and placed and hung bugs from the trees and doorways.  I hung a huge mosquito net canopy in the living room along the fake plants.  It was like a tent for them to play in and the children loved it! 

PARTY SNACKS AND FOOD: For food my husband barbecued hot dogs, baked beans, ribs, potato salad, and cole slaw. We had chips and trail mix on the tables.  

CAKE: We had a cupcake cake with the CAMP KENDIS logo printed on it.  

FAVORS: Treat bags where simple plain brown lunch bags to which I glued the CAMP KENDIS logo.  We did not have a pinata so they were filled with candy and simple prizes like bracelets for the girls, noise makers, etc.  They also had the fake bugs and snakes.   

ACTIVITIES:  We had such a big turn out that space was really limited.  With that in mind we played games such as 'hot potato' and 'pin the tail'.  One of the party favorites was a the balloon pop relay where I spilt the kids into 2 teams and the sat on chairs and had to pop their balloons and then tag the next teammate.  The next favorite where the bug tatoos.  The children got 2 each and received 2 in their treat bags.  They LOVED these! It was much faster and easier than face painting. 

The last activity before the children left was fishing.  We had a 20 gallon aquarium set up with small feeder fish. The children where able to 'fish' with a net and We placed their fish in plasic bags (carnival style) to go home with them on their way out.  We labled the aquarium LAKE (our last name) and the kids could not wait for this activity.  It kept them busy between activities too.   

A few of the boys slept over and were able to do s'mores over the fire.  We then did jiffy pop popcorn and they camped out in the living room watching a movie as they went to sleep.  For Christmas the I got one of my sons a planetarium globe thing that transposed a starry sky on the ceiling, so they 'camped' out under the stars.  Our best and least expensive party yet!