We celebrated Lil Bean’s birthday over 2 months ago, AND IT WAS AMAZING!

Since she loves Mickey and Minnie so much, we went with a Mickey’s Clubhouse theme. It took many months of planning but it was well worth it. Everyone had so much fun and we did it all under budget! How you might ask? Like this!

Starting around February, D and I decided on Lil Bean’s birthday theme and since we had a lot of time to prep (her birthday is in May) we were able to keep costs down by shopping sales and scouring Dollar Tree stores for Mickey and Minnie items. Even though shopping is D’s least favorite thing to do, he was happy to oblige me whenever we saw a Dollar Tree store — letting me hop out and check their wares. =) Like they say, “Happy wifey, happy life!”

Of course you can go overboard shopping for party supplies and easily blow your budget. To stop us from doing so, we had a list of items we absolutely needed.

PARTY SUPPLIES LIST

• 6 red table covers — Found them at Dollar Tree
• Black plates — We bought both large and small plates from Walmart.
• Red napkins — We ended up buying red napkins with white polka dots from Walmart.
• Plastic cups — D’s parents let us use their party cups so we didn’t have to buy any.
• Plastic forks, spoons, and knives — D’s parents and my parents had leftover plastic forks, spoons, and knives from previous parties so we used theirs.
• Plastic serving ware — We bought so many from Dollar Tree for Lil Bean’s first birthday that we kept them around in our “party box”.
• Balloons and helium — We feel like buying your own helium tank is easier than buying pre-blown balloons from Party City. We found Mickey balloons at Dollar Tree and supplemented with a couple packages of confetti balloons, which we also found at Dollar Tree.
• Piñata plus candies and toys — The piñata we purchased at a local piñata store for $20 (it was huge!). We purchased 2 bags of candy from Costco and ended up using half of each. As for the toys we bought packs of dinosaurs, animals, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse spin tops, and stickers. All from Dollar Tree.
• 15 red party favor bags — We only placed 3 items in the party favor bags since we had a piñata. We found the party favor items from Dollar Tree.
• Birthday decorations — Dollar Tree had Mickey Mouse Clubhouse disposable placeholders. We supplemented with generic birthday table decor that went with our color schemes, also from Dollar Tree. We purchased red with white polka dotted cutout letters to make our own personalized happy birthday banner, also from Dollar Tree.
• Photobooth props — I found these free Mickey Mouse Clubhouse printouts online and printed them on cardstock paper. We ended up buying a laminator and laminating sheets to make the props sturdier which made them a bit costly up front. But we figured a laminator will come in handy in the future.

All together we spent around $350 for the party overall. This also included the bounce house (we rented a Mickey Clubhouse bounce house for $120) and food/drinks. AND we didn’t skimp on the food. We had hot dogs, grilled chicken, Filipino food, BBQ pulled pork, a taco bar, a salad bar, and a huge dessert bar. For a Disney-themed party, we think we did pretty good.

Here are some photos of Lil Bean’s Clubhouse party!

Squee! Looking at these photos makes me want to throw another party ASAP.

I love party planning and can’t wait for the next family shindig. Nor can I wait for Lil Bean’s 3rd Birthday. I wonder what her favorites will be by then! Whatever character(s) she loves by then, I will gladly accept the challenge!!!

‘Til the next time.

-E