Even before I had my little girl I knew I wanted to throw her a pink and gold first birthday party. I love gold and I love sparkles! I wanted to share some of my tips for throwing a party on a budget. I was able to throw this party for under $20 with some careful planning long before!

Scope out yard sales for possible party decor. I love yard sales! I am always on the look out for anything I use for a party. For this one I found all the cake stands at different yard sales throughout the year. If you can’t get to yard sales check out your local thrift stores. The tall crystal cake stand I got for only $2 at a sale! I also purchased the mason jars at a yard sale for $2 for a box of twelve and then spray painted them gold.

 Go to stores after holidays and buy up all the holiday sale stuff! I knew I needed gold for the pink and gold party and Christmas decorations have tons of gold in them. I went to Hobby Lobby a few days after Christmas and everything was marked down 90%. This is where I bought all my gold details!! I got the bows, table runner, gold rope, gold tissue paper and most importantly gold glitter wrapping paper. I think I ended up paying 10 cents for the various gold bows, $1 for the rope, $1 for wrapping paper and $2 for the table runner. I also found a gold bead garland for $1 marked down at Target. Think of other colors you could also use too. I saw blue glitter wrapping paper, red, pink and green. All which could possibly be used for a party. After St. Patricks there are tons of green things on sale, Valentines lots of cute hearts, etc. Think ahead for your upcoming party!  I used the wrapping paper to make my cupcake toppers and to make my ONE banner. I don’t have a machine to cut things out, so I just printed off the letters on my computer and traced them on to the the wrapping paper.

Find out if and when your local grocery or flower store discounts flowers. I am lucky enough to live by a grocery store the regularly marks down their bouquets to only 99 cents. So I was able to buy my flowers for only $3 for the party. I rearranged the bouquets to fit into my mason jars.  I have found that a lot of places mark down their flowers when they are started to wilt a little, but you can usually place them in some fresh water and remove some of the wilty petals or leaves and they will look great the next day. Don’t be afraid to ask when they typically mark things down.

Make as many things as you can yourself. I looked at cakes I wanted on Pinterest and decided one I could make myself. I also made the cupcakes for the party. I just had to buy the ice cream. (I just did a simple cake and ice cream party). See if you can trade someone to make a cake for you if you have another skill! The recipe for the whipped cream frosting I used on the cakes and cupcakes can be found here.

Resale your party stuff!!  Since I was going to be spray painting jars for the party I decided not waste my gold spray paint and just spray the  extras I had.  I also made extra cup cake toppers with the glitter wrapping paper and extra tissue paper garlands. I sold three of the sets (4 mason jars, 1 tissue paper garland and a dozen cupcake toppers) for $20 each on a local Facebook yard sale group. I also sold the ones I used for the party after I used them. So not only did I get stuff at an awesome discount I was also able to recoup the cost plus more by making a few extra.

I know that you might not be able to use all these tips to throw your party, but I hope I gave you some ideas on how you can save money and still have an awesome party.