Goody Bags & the Great Dollar Store

Yesterday we were out running errands, getting ready for this weekend's birthday party, and I was reminded of something... I LOVE the dollar stores!! Every year when I have to put together "goody bags" for my daughter's birthday party, I struggle with having a cute bag to give out. I want it to be filled with things the kids will like (and that my daughter will not be embarrassed by, heaven forbid!), but I don't want it to break my budget! This year I was able to get a 20 pack of clear cellophane goody bags with smiley faces printed on them at -- and they had all sorts of designs of these bags -- for under $3 at Factory Card Outlet. I thought this was a great price!

Of course, then you have to put something IN the bag... I had a TON of leftover "Dum-Dum" lollipops from Halloween, so that was the first thing I put in the bags. I "splurged" a little on lip gloss party favors -- (2) 12 packs (of course, we have 15 kids coming...) that were $3 each, but this wasn't too bad and my girl REALLY wanted these for her friends. I got some candy necklaces (5 for $1) and bracelets (10 for $1) in the bulk section of my grocery store -- it's great to buy bulk because you can buy exactly what you need!

I was still looking for something else to fill them up a little, but not at great expense. Enter the dollar store -- Dollar Tree to be exact! We have a great one by our house, and I hardly ever think to go there. And of course we went after my husband had gone grocery shopping, and we saw so many things there - name brand - that he had just spent much more than $1 for... But back to the goody bags... They had such great stuff -- colorful pencils (10 or 12 for $1), cute erasers shaped in hearts and flowers ($10 for $1), all sorts of great stuff for goody bags! They had the cutest packages of crayons with Disney Princesses, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tinkerbell & Fairies -- 4 packages of 8-pack crayons for $1 -- but I was told in no uncertain terms that "crayons are babyish" (to a 7 year old, apparently) so I had to pass that deal up...

We also picked up Valentine's cards for both of my girls to send out, and these would have easily been $3 or $4 at the grocery store! And I found 2 things I was looking for for my "Pub Night" next weekend -- all in all it was a very successful trip, and my husband was able to steer me out of there before my eyes started to glass over and before I went overboard trying to "save."