Top 5 Fabulous BackYard Birthday Parties

It's not easy being a parent, and when birthday party time rolls around the job just gets tougher. Kids can be a tough crowd and coming up with unique, entertaining and feasible birthday festivities each year is a challenge, plain and simple. So here are five theme party ideas, complete with recommendations for invitations, decorations, activities and food to help make your job a little easier this year.

Birthday party #1: Backyard Birthday Carnival

Remember how your heart used to skip a beat whenever the carnival came to town? Why not give your child a taste of that midway magic by helping him host a backyard carnival for his friends in honour of his next birthday?

Location: Outdoors - backyard

Age:Seven- to eight-year- olds

Invitations:Buy or make brightly coloured invitations that tie into the carnival theme (circus clowns or balloons, for example). And while you're filling out those party invitations, be sure to let the party guests know that they should wear clothes that can withstand a little mustard and face paint. (A backyard birthday carnival is all about having fun -- not about worrying about whether you just got grass stains on your brand new party dress!)

Decorations:Pick up some brightly-coloured disposable tablecloths that can be knotted together and tossed over a backyard patio set or hung over your back fence to create the look of a circus tent. And be sure to load up on brightly coloured balloons, too. (You can hang them from the laundry line with clothes pegs and add a few to the loot bag of each party guest.)

Food: Serve standard carnival fare: hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and ice cream-waffle sandwiches for dessert. (Hint: Stick birthday candles in each individual ice cream-waffle sandwich if you want to create a "carnivaly" birthday cake.)

Fun and games: Games are the heart of any good carnival. Here are some guaranteed crowd pleasers that you can make quickly and easily, and at very little cost:

• Bean bag toss: Make some hand-sized beanbags on your sewing machine and fill each beanbag with dried beans. Stitch closed. Then cut a series of holes into a large cardboard box. Paint and decorate the cardboard box and -- voila! -- your first carnival game is ready.
• Ring toss: Make some plastic rings by cutting holes in lids from a bunch of large plastic margarine and ice cream containers. The party guests can then take turns trying to toss the rings on wooden dowels that have been hammered into the grass. (Note: Remove the dowels as soon as you're finished with this particular activity to prevent any of the party guests from tripping and hurting themselves.)
• Fish pond: Make homemade fish out of cardboard and homemade fishing rods using sticks and string. Attach a paperclip to the mouth of each fish and a magnet to the end of each piece of string. Toss your fish in a fish pond (an empty wading pool works perfectly) and see what the party guests manage to catch.

Loot bags: Look for notebooks, pencils, and storybooks that tie into the carnival theme. Toss in a balloon or two and a small serving of candy floss and you will be sending the party guests home with the ultimate carnival loot bag.

Etc.: Think about hiring a high school student or two to pitch in on party day. It's hard to paint faces and manage the ring toss while you're simultaneously cooking hotdogs and making ice cream sandwiches!

Birthday party #2: Backyard arts and crafts

Certain types of arts and crafts project were meant to be enjoyed in the great outdoors -- like those projects with wonderfully messy ingredients that tend to splatter and scatter everywhere. So give your pudding Picasso a chance to host the best birthday party ever -- a backyard arts and crafts birthday bash!

Location: Outdoors -- backyard

Age: Five- to eight-year-olds

Invitations: Design invitations that tap into the art motif: e.g., invitations that are covered in paint splatters or that are cut in the shape of a palette, an easel, a sculpture, or an empty picture frame. Let your imagination run wild! And while you're at it, don't forget to include a note reminding party guests to wear clothes that can get a little messy. This is an arts and crafts birthday bash, after all!

Decorations: Go light with the party decorations. That way, you'll have plenty of room to display the art that is created during the party. Hang artwork from clotheslines, tape it to fences or garage doors, clothes-peg it to low-lying branches on evergreen trees, and find other creative ways to turn your backyard into an instant art gallery.

Food: Serve your party guests a birthday cake that has been decorated to look like an artist's palette or -- if your child prefers cupcakes -- ice each cupcake with a different colour of frosting to represent all the colours in an artist's paint box.

Fun and games: Set up a series of craft activity centres in your backyard so that your party guests can move from activity to activity. Here are some of the activities that you may want to include.

• Ping-pong ball painting: Put a piece of paper in the bottom of a dishpan. Add a couple of squirts of different colours of watered down liquid tempra paint. Toss in a ping-pong ball. Now paint a picture by blowing the ping-pong ball across the page or by gently tilting the dishpan back and forth.
• Straw painting: It doesn't get much messier than this! Paint a picture by sucking a small amount of paint into a straw and then blowing the paint out through the straw and on to the page. (Hint: You may want to provide plastic smocks for this particular activity.)
• Footprint art: How often do kids get to feel the wonderfully squishy sensation of paint between their toes. Give each party guest the chance to dip his/her feet into one or more dishpans of paint filled with various colours of paint. The party guest can then walk out on to a giant sheet of mural paper that has been spread out on the grass. Note: The dishpans may be a bit slippery, so you may want to hold each guest's hand to keep him or her from slipping.

Loot bags: Sketch books, miniature picture frames, and an inexpensive plastic folder suitable for carrying home some of the art that was made at the party all make great loot bag treats.

Etc.: Be sure to have bins of soapy water and plenty of old towels next to each activity centre so that the guests can wipe their hands (and, in some cases, wash and wipe their feet!) as they go.

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