I’ve always been slightly uneasy at the amount of wasted plastic that comes in kids party bags. Don’t get me wrong, I have done a few party bags in the past with cheap plastic toys that are actually pretty good value for money and fun, but in hindsight are just adding to our piles of plastic waste.
So now I am trying to look for ways of making sustainable party bags for my son’s party and having things in there that are either degradable, reusable or recyclable.
My first venture into doing this involves getting rid of the plastic party bags themselves. It is a bit tough because they are cheap and fun and you can get them with pretty much any character you like on them.
I think I am pretty lucky in a way that I have a rather ‘unusual’ child who is hopefully not bothered about what the party bags look like!
So what I have done for this year is to make the party bags out of newspaper that I have hanging around the house. You can see how I did this here. It is a pretty nifty way of using up old paper and cardboard which would be thrown away anyway and it pretty much costs nothing.
I’m also sticking on some Fireman Sam pictures that I have cut out of an old magazine that is hanging around and has been read numerous times! I guess if you have enough magazines with children’s characters in then you could actually make the party bags out of those.
Inside the party bag are 3 things (I need to come up with more ideas next year!) – some color fizz bath tablets which I have bought a bulk pack of and split up and wrapped in tissue paper, some paper sweet bags filled with some sweets (also from a big bucket that I can reuse for craft supplies) and an A5 sized colouring/sticker/puzzle book. (All links are to the exact products I bought on Amazon UK*).
*see the terms and conditions page about my links to Amazon
