Bounce House Party Ideas

I'm writing today to answer a reader request from Magnolia Mama. Her four year old is having his birthday at one of the bouncy house franchises (do I hear a collective groan?) that our kids adore so much. I really don't like these places because much like Chuck E Cheese, they seem to be teeming with germs. My son and daughter, however, are obsessed and can't wait to have their parties there. Lucky you, MM, BabyBoy had a Bounce House and Barbeque party for his 4th!

Here are some of the ideas that worked for me.



For BabyBoy's party I did a cake similar to this but with two tiers. Nothing too fancy, but super cute. You can find the directions at Martha Stewart's website.

I also found this cake that I thought was too cute. You could also consider doing a cupcake tower. Less work for you; just pass those puppies out and don't worry about having to cut anything.





For favors at our party I did a traditional baggie full of "kiddie" type goodies. I took clear cello bags and filled them with superballs, bubbles, ring pops, temporary tatoos and bubblegum. I tied the bags with brightly colored raffia and threaded a red, blue, yellow or green wiffle ball through the bow. If you don't want to go to the trouble of collecting so much stuff, you could do bubbles with custom made labels thanking everyone for coming to your son's party. They're really simple to make on your computer. Just buy some mailing labels and use the premade templates they offer on the box.

As for decorations, you really don't have to do too much. My experience at the bouncy place in my town is that they already have a room set up with decorations. If you wanted to jazz up the tables you could scatter these adorable Mini Gumball Machines around and let the kids take them home after the party.



I love all things monogrammed or personalized so for BabyBoy's party I had my friend at To Bee Named make me these adorable napkins. They kind of went with the primary colors theme and the stripes were a fun contrast to all the polkadots and bouncy balls.



Hope these ideas were helpful! Don't forget to take lots of pictures!