Handmade Party Favors

Handmade party favors come in a variety of shapes and sizes. If you want to make your own party favors, there are a couple of things you should consider:

Are you going to use store-bought products to assemble your party favor idea?

Are your homemade party favors going to be edible?

Will your favors include perishable items (for example, flowers)?

The answers to these questions will help you figure out how much time you need to shop for and assemble your favors. Think - if your favors are edible or perishable, you'll only want to create them a day or so in advance. If you are using store-bought items, you'll want to be sure to give yourself enough time to find everything, and then enough time to put them together.

Here's a funny story - I thought long and hard about party favor ideas to make for my son's second birthday party. Finally, I decided upon Wizard of Oz-themed favors. I had already gotten the Emerald City green bags from Michaels, as well as the character stickers for decoration. In the bags I planned to include a few pieces of candy, green playdough, and a Wizard of Oz character finger puppet (Scarecrow, Tinman, Lion, or Dorothy) which I had found at the Dollar Tree for my son a few months prior to the party. Unfortunately, I waited until two days before the party to go out searching for the finger puppets. Needless to say, I checked every Dollar Tree in a fifty mile radius to no avail. The kids ended up with The Emperor's New Clothes finger puppets instead. I learned the "don't put it off to the last minute lesson" quite quickly that year.

It's impossible to list the "most popular" handmade party favors because you can make a favor for just about any occasion. Instead, I'll tell you about a few of the most original ones I've seen so far.

Kids birthday, Summer: A small, blue beach pail with handle. The pail included a sand toy, a plastic shovel, and Flavorice ice pops, unfrozen.

Wedding: Each guest was given a scratch-off lottery ticket during the maid-of-honor toast. At the end of her toast, she asked all guests to scratch their tickets together. One guest won $500!

Tea Party: The hostess stapled each teabag (store-bought) to a piece of card stock. She printed a small label with the event name and date for the front of the card stock. Then the teabag card was affixed to the top of a silver teaspoon (the tall, skinny kind). Guests took home a specialty tea, and a specialty spoon for stirring!

New Years Eve: A small, cardboard bottle carrier was filled with two small bottles of milk (some chocolate so guests could choose) and a bag of homemade cookies. Card on the front of the carrier read "Midnight Snack - for those of you who need to fill your sloshy bellies before closing your eyes in the new year." A total hit!

Be sure to check our themed party favor pages for more specific handmade party favor ideas.

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