Kids love bugs, even if moms and dads don't approve of these pesky visitors. If you have a junior bug lover in your family, plan a fun and buggy birthday party for him with a few simple ideas for decorations, favors and snacks that are sure to please. Does this Spark an idea?
Decorations
Make simple hanging bugs with construction paper. Cut out ovals from a variety of colors and draw buggy faces on them. Then use long strips of construction paper, accordion-folded, to make the legs. Put six or eight legs on each bug, and hang them from the ceiling with string or fishing wire.
Use plastic or rubber bugs (available in large bags at dollar or discount stores) in your decorations. Glue them to your food dishes and stick them around your doorways with double-sided tape.
Follow a buggy color scheme in your paper goods, table coverings and streamers or balloons. Purple, green, and black are traditional bug colors and can easily be incorporated into your décor.
Party Favors
Send your guests home with fun buggy reminders of the day. You can purchase "bug houses" at craft stores and use these to hold your party favors; this way, when kids get home, they can hunt for bugs in their own yards and have a habitat to keep them in.
Fill your bug houses with magnifying glasses, toy bugs, and bug-themed pencils and erasers. You can even give them a "Buggy" notebook so they can record their discoveries about the insect world.
Have kids make their own bug hats at the party. Give them painter's caps (from the craft store), fabric paints, and foam shapes to make eyes, antennae and legs on their hat creations. Let dry during the party, and guests can wear them home.
Refreshments
Make "mud pie" by pouring chocolate pudding into a bowl and adding crushed chocolate sandwich cookies on top to resemble dirt. Throw in some gummy worms for effect, and serve in small bowls.
You can purchase fruit snack bugs for a snack, or put them in the favor boxes. Provide gummy worms and spiders in snack bowls or decorate your cake with them.
Put small pretzel sticks into the soft sides of marshmallows to make sweet spider snacks. Use icing to stick gumdrops onto graham crackers in long lines for sugary caterpillars. Let kids decorate buggy cupcakes by giving them plain ones and candy toppings. You can use M&Ms for eyes, licorice rope for legs and antennae, and gumdrops for polka dots.
Tags: construction paper, gummy worms