Dollar Store Garden Party

My baby girl turned 11 last week and I am still in total disbelief. We are on the brink of having a teenager where my little girl used to be. I just can’t believe how fast time is escaping us each day. In my efforts to embrace my time with her, I decided on a whim to put together a Garden Party to celebrate her birthday!

What made me decide on a Garden Party for our special occasion? The weather. It’s perfect these days and the flowers are already blooming and we are often looking for an excuse to be outside enjoying it all! I’m also obsessed with the dollar store this time of year and I knew that we could find everything we needed to create an amazing Garden Party for the birthday celebration.

Special Birthday Guests

I surprised my daughter by inviting her best friend and her family to the Garden Party. With their 5 kids and our 5 kids, it was the perfect amount of party guests! We planned a kid-friendly menu and games that I think you’ll love too! I’m excited to share with you all the details of our Dollar Store Garden Party!

Let’s Get Started!

My oldest son and I set out to plan our impromptu Garden Party by keeping in mind that we had a frugal budget and we also didn’t want to have to put a lot of work into the party planning! I rarely spend days, weeks or hours planning things. Life is too busy and I don’t like to take time away from my kids and hubby. We knew that we wanted to plan a couple of menu items that were favorites of my daughter. My son planned a couple of games with supplies we already had on hand and supplemented with a few items from the dollar store.

Shopping

I have to tell you how much FUN we had shopping! Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that shopping at the dollar store can be dangerous because the items are only a dollar and you want to keep loading your shopping cart with all the cute, decorative fun things that you find! I made a quick list before we left for the store to help keep us focused and on budget. I decided we were looking for:

2 plastic tablecloths (yellow & pink)
paper plates
napkins
forks
cups
straws
plastic pitcher
decorative garden elements
supplies for games

My Favorite Tablecloth Hack

If you know me, then you know how much fun I have using plastic tablecloths in creative ways. From backdrops to DIY photo booths, I have created a variety of fun uses for plastic tablecloths. For this Garden Party tablescape foundation, I started by doubling up 2 plastic dollar store tablecloths. I layer them with colors that complement one another and the party theme. I decided on pink and yellow for this Garden Party. I created “pick ups” along the table edge by simply picking up a small section of the tablecloth by pinching it and applying a piece of tape to hold it in place. I then added a dot of hot glue to adhere a small butterfly jewel on top of the tape.

I just love how you can see the second tablecloth peeking through with another pop of color for our Garden Party tablescape.

Place Settings

We hit the jackpot at our local dollar store! We had our choice between 3 springtime place settings. We decided on a bright colorful set with butterflies on it. We also picked out matching napkins, paper cups and straws. We grabbed some plastic cups for punch and decided to use the paper butterfly cups for our yogurt parfaits. {I’ll share that with you shortly}

I bought a package of large paper doilies to use as placemats. I just love how they added a layer of texture to our Garden Party place settings.

Mason Jar Centerpiece

I literally cannot imagine planning party decor without using a mason jar. I have used mason jars in a variety of ways for all types of celebrations. This Dollar Store Garden Party is no different! For this party tablescape, I decided to put the mason jar front and center…as our table centerpiece with fresh flowers!

This Dollar Store Mason Jar Centerpiece is so easy to make! I bought a roll of pink burlap and a roll of yellow ribbon.

I cut a long piece of pink burlap and wrapped it around the center of the mason jar and used a dab of hot glue to secure the burlap to the jar. I then tied a cute bow out of the yellow ribbon and also applied a dab of hot glue to attach it to the pink burlap. It was that simple.

Tabletop Decor

I was surprised to find so many adorable Garden figurines and tabletop decor pieces! My favorites are the little mushrooms and turtles.

The little park bench, bridge and garden gazebo are so precious!

When I first saw these mesh decorative butterflies, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to use them but I knew that I just had to have them. I think they worked well just simply laying on top of my Garden Party table.

The final piece of garden party decor that I grabbed were these hanging butterflies and flowers. I thought they’d be the perfect final touch to our Garden Party environment. I decided to hang them in our Oleander Bushes near our table and I’m so glad I did! Look at how cute they are.

Garden Party Menu

We decided to serve a couple of the birthday girl’s favorite foods. My daughter has attended countless tea parties with me where she fell in love with cucumber cream cheese sandwiches. They’re really simple to make. Here’s a few of my tips for making Cucumber Cream Cheese Sandwiches.

Cucumber Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Tip #1 – Slice cucumbers using a mandolin slicer. Lay them flat on a tea towel and sprinkle them with salt (this helps draw the water out of the cucumber slices). Then roll them up in the tea towel and stick them in the refrigerator over night. This will pull out all the of water from the cucumbers so that you don’t have soggy sandwiches.

Tip #2 – In the morning, unroll the tea towel and place the cucumbers on a paper towel and pat them dry one more time.

Tip #3 – Use a very generous amount of cream cheese on both slices of bread. Also, use more than one layer of cucumbers. The more cucumbers, the crunchier the bite!

Tip #4 – Use a biscuit cutter to slice the cucumber cream cheese sandwiches. I used this biscuit cutter set to slice mine. Your garden party guests will really enjoy this refreshing, crunchy sandwich!

Yogurt Parfait

My daughter’s favorite snacks are strawberries and yogurt so we decided to put those 2 foods together to create a tasty little yogurt parfait! Tip: You might add some tasty granola to the top of your parfaits. We snagged these adorable butterfly cups with our matching place settings at the dollar store.

This handy dollar store plastic tray was perfect for transporting food from the house to our garden party table outside.

A Refreshing Beverage

My son found this delicious punch recipe out of a kid’s magazine and thought his big sister would really enjoy it! Boy was he right! It was delicious and so easy to make.

Strawberry Lemonade (mix)
Peach Tea
Fresh Lemon (sliced)
Fresh Strawberries (sliced)

I couldn’t serve our party guests this delicious punch from a boring plastic cup, so I tied a cute bow out of yellow ribbon and added a dot of hot glue to it and attached it to the front of our cups! How adorable is that?!

Dessert

My daughter is a chocoholic just like her mama! We can’t live without it. I just knew that we had to go with a chocolate dessert for our birthday girl. Since I was running low on creative energy, we decided to buy a store-bought dessert. We went with these cute Spring Mini-Brownies. I grabbed this cupcake tower that I already had on hand to display our yummy dessert.

When we were dollar store shopping I had grabbed these 3 adorable butterfly boxes. I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with them and then my son had an idea to put candy in them so our party guests can take a bag of candy home with them.

Easy, DIY Games

In keeping with the simplicity of our Garden Party planning, we decided to make simple games for the kids to play from items that we already had on hand. This made it easy to supplement with just a few items from our dollar store shopping trip.

Butterfly Toss Game

We grabbed these springtime plastic cups that we already had on hand and then bought a package of butterfly gems from the dollar store to create this game. Children lined up the cups on the ground and then had to stand at least 5 feet away and toss butterflies into the cups. The kiddo who tossed the most butterflies into the cups was the winner!

Flower Basket Relay Race

We grabbed 2 baskets that we already had on hand from the garage and these foam flowers from an art kit. You can find both of these items at the dollar store as well, we just happened to already have them on hand! My son scattered the foam flowers randomly throughout the yard. Children were then put into teams of 2. Each team had 20 seconds to run throughout the yard collecting as many of the foam flowers as possible before the time was up. The team that collected the most flowers was the winner!

Making Memories…

My daughter said this was the most amazing birthday surprise ever! I think she was especially pleased to know how much her little brother had to do with the planning. He had a vision and we went with it! Honestly, having a dollar store right down the road really helped with the last-minute planning and smaller budget we were working with. I think both my son and I were pleasantly surprised at our job well done!