Birthday Parties on a Budget

I don't know about you, but saving money are birthday parties was/is a necessity. Over the years I have done lots of parties for my kids over the years and still have plenty more to do. I thought I would share a few ideas here on a few themes we have done.
One of my favorite parties ever was for when my third child turned 5. One of her nicknames is Ladybug and the them of this party was ladybugs. We of course decorated the house in red and black, lots of streamers everywhere. We had gone to Wal*Mart and gotten a bunch of red and black balloons blown up, besides decorations, they also served as party favors. I made a ladybug cake. I baked a round bowl shaped cake for the body and a cupcake for the head. I frosted the cake using homemade red frosting. I used green candies for the eyes and large black candies for the body. I know I used something else to decorate the cake with but I have forgotten what else I used. I also made sugar cookies and those were decorated like ladybugs. I also printed off ladybug themed coloring pages for an activity. The main party fun was a large ladybug (made from poster board) that was hung on the wall. The kids had to put the spots on the ladybug. There might have been something else, but I can't remember. I know the kids had a blast! I am sure you can go even farther with this idea. I wish I had another little girl who liked ladybugs.
Another theme we have done is an underwater birthday. With this one my oldest dd (who is amazingly creative) colored a bunch of fish pictures and made waves. How she made waves was by taking our end roll of newspaper and cut it into three strips. She colored waves onto the paper. She then hung up the fish all over the house and taped the waves to the wall. We had blue and green crepe paper. We hung those up to represent water and seaweed. For her cake we had some cupcakes a month of so before her birthday that had plastic decorations on top. There were starfish and octopus and crabs. I also had wavy candles. I used those to decorate the cake and sprinkled on top little colored sugar sprinkles. It looked really nice. This was a birthday that we had here in Wisconsin so there were no other people but us so no games. One thing we have sort of practiced in the past but definitely do now since we are home for the child's birthday--side note, we used to celebrate the birthday on a Saturday or Sunday. This way family and friends could make it. Since all of our family is in Texas and there aren't really any kids that go to our church, there aren't any "friends" that we could invite. Now I try to make their birthday as big a deal as I possibly can---
The child gets up to a house decorated in their theme of choice. We have streamers and pictures hanging all over the house. There are two special things that we do. One of them is a special piece of paper with birthday wishes on it and usually a few decorations that go with the current theme. That is hung in a special place. For the door that they are going to walk through we hang up a long piece of paper, usually from the newspaper end roll. I write on it Happy Birthday so and so and a few other things and tape it to the door they are going to walk through. Then it is cut into strips. We sing happy birthday to them and record them walking through the door decoration. If it is a school day, then they just have to complete about an hours worth of school and they are free to spend the day however they want. Almost all of their chores are done by other family members for the day too. One last thing that we do for the birthday child is they get to pick all of the meals for the day. Whatever they want, I make. They are made to feel like a king or queen for their special day. I also like to snuggle with the child either on their birthday or the day before and I recount what life was like when they were born. All of mine were c-sections so I don't have any stories where we almost didn't make to the hospital or anything, but include what I can.
I hope that this has given you a few ideas on how to make your little ones feel special on their special day.
Please overlook any mistakes that I have made, I don't have the time to go back at all and correct them right now. DH is coming home early today, he has a dr's apt and might have to have his tonsils taken out. Have a great week!