Valentine's Day Party on a Budget

I planned the Valentine's Day party for Rachel's AHG Explorers group.  We have a budget but I wanted to make things nice for the girls so I shopped at my favorite resource, Dollar Tree!  This place has some neat things that you can use creatively for all kinds of projects.  And everything in the store is just $1.00 each!

I got 2 red plastic table covers to make it festive...and to keep the markers from the art project from staining the church's tables ($2.00).  

I also got 2 bouquets of fake pink and white roses.  Each bouquet had 5 flowers on it ($2.00).  I pulled the flowers off the stems and just placed them in the center of each table as a centerpiece and then scattered some glitter hearts around the table ($1.00). 

Each of the girls were bringing Valentine's Day cards to share with their friends.  I thought about making little mail boxes for each of them but time was short so I just bought each of them a Valentine's Day gift bag.  They were $1.00 each and they were colorful and glittery.

I found lots of options for free Valentine's Day themed bingo games to print at home.  But we were going to have 17 girls playing so I needed 17 different bingo cards.  I ended up having to purchase a classroom set from Rosie's Superstars on the Teachers Pay Teachers site.  I love finding school resources there!  I printed the cards at home and then bought boxes of candy conversation hearts at Dollar Tree for the girls to use as bingo markers.  They loved snacking on their bingo markers!

We played several rounds on bingo.  The girls were then given a challenge to see how high they could stack their candy hearts.  Some made single file towers.  Others made pyramids like this one and other crazy creations.

Rachel was happy to just eat hers.

Of course candy hearts weren't the only snack.  The girls brought plenty of sweet treats to share with their friends.  What is a party without lots of sweets???

I also had the girls make a service project.  They made a May Basket paper craft that they could share with an elderly neighbor or anyone who needed cheering up.  I found the template at AlphaMom and used a few sheets of scrapbook paper that I already had.

The party was for 17 girls.  It included decorations, games, a craft, a service project, Valentine's Day goody bags, and treats for less than $30 out of our budget.  I do love Dollar Tree!