Waste free 5th Birthday Party

Felix had originally asked for a superhero party, however, without any prompting from me, decided he'd like a 'Nature Birthday' instead. What followed was a lovely afternoon tea in the backyard, and keeping it waste free, was actually very easy.

A nature birthday cake! Easy

We didn't invite a cast of thousands, this made it easier to begin with. Guests numbered 13 including kids and not including the 5 of us. For those who did attend, along with the (e)invitation, we included a note requesting no waste or low waste gifts along with a brief explanation.

The guests took on the spirit wonderfully. Books and gifts wrapped in newspaper, handmade cloth bags and hand decorated paper. On the day, his favourite gift was a terracotta pot and some plants that he immediately decided he needed to plant. 

The cake (banana) I was able to bake in my amazing silver anodised cake pan from Silverwood. I didn't line it, merely greased with a little butter and sprinkled with flour (actually Felix helped with this bit) and the cake came out fine, no waste there.

Mud Pies

Decorating the cake, I used fondant flowers and rice paper butterflies I already had on hand. However these things can be purchased from cake decorating stores loose and you can take along your own packaging to pick and choose. 



The inedible decorations and candles were wiped clean afterwards and popped back into my jar of cake decorations. I have a reusable piping bag, and the ingredients either came from bulk or recyclable packaging.

I made 'mud pie' chocolate brownies in my Tupperware tuppcakes moulds. No waste there.

An easy waste free spread

Sausage rolls baked in the oven on my reusable Tupperware baking sheet.

We had fruit and put out the compost bin for the scraps.

All food and drink was served in our crockery. No soft drinks or juices, just water and beer or wine from recyclable glass bottles. 

If I had organised myself a little more ahead, I could've made reusable napkins, however everyone seemed ok just washing their hands or just wiping them on their clothes (mainly the children!)

For the party favours / activities we cut up and stamped an egg carton with the kid's names on each little cup. My dad helped out with this one and dutifully stamped away. We then filled a tub with some seed raising mix we had in the shed and let the kids plant some seeds to take home. It kept them out of trouble for a little while, I think they were mostly happy just to run about playing in the great outdoors though.

Personalised thank you gift

Do you think you'd ever attempt a waste free kids party?