Lesser waste birthday party?

We recently celebrated a birthday in the house and it was an opportunity to re-think the waste possibilities.  Full disclosure, reducing waste was NOT our primary goal, it was to entertain a bunch of kids and make sure the birthday boy had a wonderful time.  With the exception of 3 three things, everything for the party was done on the fly that day.  Here are the pre-thoughts:

1.  A birthday banner – a friend who sews, faster and more proficiently than myself, put together a banner from scraps she already had. We will use this for every one’s birthday from this moment on.  Thank you Rhonda.  Decorations – Check.

2.  Custom Legos – I know, I know, NEW Legos?!?!  Like I said, reducing waste was not our primary concern, however, although I purchased new I was determined not to have any “instant waste” attached to my purchase, meaning packaging.  I have to give props where they are due and Sean at the Lego store, helped me for a painful 50 minutes while we custom built a Lego car. We then collected and collated the legos needed for 7 future birthday goers and lastly I slipped our hard work into one of my trusty bags.  For the party we built the cars….and then we raced them 🙂 Party activity – Check.  Party favor – Check.

3.  Teddy Bear toss – Took a trip to my not so friendly neighborhood Goodwill store and picked up 3 used stuffed bears.  We took turn tossing the bears into buckets we already had at home.  Party activity #2 – Check.  Future dog chew toys – Check.

Other than that, we had great weather so the party kicked off with chalk drawing in the driveway.  We outlined each kid and they decorated themselves, 10 minutes later I had a drive way full of mini-super heroes.

I baked a cake, whipped up some cream and we all sat down to water or milk and cake and whipped cream and strawberries.  Here’s our birthday set-up, the glasses are actually old jelly jars…..does that make-up for my new Legos?…..Didn’t think so.

Obviously glasses and glass plates might not work for certain kids, for example ages 3 and under, but for our little soiree, it was right on and the waste was a bit of painter’s tape versus disposable plates, napkins, cups, etc.

We had a few other games and activities that involved paper and other waste but I feel like this was a good first step.  We have lots of room for waste reduction improvement but when the birthday boy told me in a sleepy voice at the end of the day, “best birthday ever”, I was feeling exactly the same way.