Selected as Party of the Day on November 30th!

Josh's Sweet 16 Bonfire

Candy @Sweet By Candy M By Candy @Sweet By Candy M  in Birthday

Drinks

Party Recap

Planning a 16th Birthday Party for a teenager can be challenging! My son really wanted to celebrate in a laid back style with as many friends as he could squeeze into our backyard with a bonfire. The plan was to make it look simple and laid back but still ultra cool enough for teenager to love...lol. Unfortunaltely with a November birthday planning an outside party always comes with a risk of bad weather! We usually have pretty mild nights still here in Tennessee in November...certainly wouldn't be to cold if you had some blankets and a bonfire. Well...Saturday brough blustery conditions!! Low in the 20's with a 25mile per hour wind gust now and then...ugh! The weather kept about half of the kids that we invited away but the ones that braved it had a great time!

Idea

Party Highlights

  • Activities / Games

    Since they are teenagers we pretty much left them alone to hang out. We borrowed my nephews projector and they watched a movie on the side of the house. We had the kids bring their ENO's to hang from the trees and they brought blankets and chairs.We had plenty of blankets for those that forgot. When it got to cold outside and my son finally caved in we moved them inside and projected the movie on my sons wall. It was much warmer :)

  • Budget

    If you've ever looked at any of my parties you know my favorite words are LOW BUDGET! lol..my husbands a teacher so we keep it creative and simple! I printed my own invitations, banners, food tags and signs. I purchased a few half price apple baskets from Hobby Lobby and used some burlap ribbon to run down the tables. The rest of the budget was on food. Now I was planning for 40 kids so I spent about $120 on food and drink including firewood. But if ou were doing this on a smaller scale it could be ridicously budget friendly! I was able to pull the entire party of for 40 kids (only 23 came and we had a lot of leftovers) for about $175. Be smart and buy the mini packs of hershey bars when they run them 10 packs for $10. For $10 you can get all the chocolate you could need in various flavors!

  • What People Ate

    The party was fron 7pm-10pm so we just did snacks. I had a Smores Bar featuring different types of chocolates. We had Reeses Cups, Hershey Bars, Cookies N Cream HErshey Bars and Andes Mints. I had graham crackers and marshmallows ready to go as well. Everything was already protioned out to grab and go. We also had a Hot chocolate bar with yummy Hershey's Homemade hot chocolate and toppings like white chocolate chips, crushed peppermint, marshmallows and whip cream. Since we were showing a movie on the big screen I also had a popcorn bar set up. They could scoop some popcorn into a little treat bag and then top with their favorite toppings. We had M&M's, Reeses Pieces, Pretzel Bits, Chocolate chips, Nacho Cheddar and White Cheddar seasoning.

  • What People Drank

    We served the Hot Chocolate and also had some sodas and water of hand. It was so cold that I don't think anyone even grabbed a soda.

  • Best Moment

    Just having all of the kids in the house was awesome!

💬

7 comments

  • Skylar S

    Skylar S wrote:

    Where did you get these invitations?

  • no photo

    Stacy M wrote:

    This template would be great for purchase.

  • no photo

    Chelsea E wrote:

    where did you buy the party supplies? how did you customize the cups, brown paper bags, and signs?

  • Candy @Sweet By Candy M

    Candy @Sweet By Candy M wrote:

    Hi! You can purchase those items through my etsy shop. www.etsy.com/shop/sweetbycandy Send me a conversation via etsy and I can set up a custom listing for you for whatever items you were interested in. I am in the process of adding those into my shop currently :) Thanks!

  • Brittany H

    Brittany H wrote:

    Where did you find these cups?

  • Candy @Sweet By Candy M

    Candy @Sweet By Candy M wrote:

    Hi Brittany! Those are actually just plain white cups that I purchased at party city and I printed a cup wrap to go around them. You can purchase that wrap on my Etsy site. www.etsy.com/shop/sweetbycandy Thanks!

  • Susan H

    Susan H wrote:

    where can i purchase the stickers? or the template?