My youngest son is in love with the Lego series, Ninjago. When he asked for his sixth birthday party to be a Ninja themed birthday party, I was all over it. Here's some easy tips and tricks to do a budget-friendly, DIY Ninja birthday party that won't disappoint your little Spinjitsu master. I love a good, home-based DIY birthday party. I did this one on a budget and without pulling my hair out over the details. I seriously did not sweat the small stuff {for, like, the first time ever}. I think the trick was keeping it super small and only inviting the besties. Most of the ideas I implemented for this party were found on Pinterest from other bloggers. For the complete source list, see the bottom of this post. PLEASE CLICK THROUGH TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST WITH FUN PARTY PICS! >>> I designed the invitation around our Lego friends. It was inspired by Anders Ruff, however my son wanted one with just the Lego eyes the characters have instead of the entire ninja {I found the eyes from a graphics shop on Etsy}. I believe Anders Ruff sells theirs if you're interested. To make a long, low to the floor, table, I pulled my desktop surface off of my desk {it's one of those Ikea desks with a looooong top}. I sat it on the coffee table. Then I just used Dollar Tree plastic table cloths on top. I used red, black and white throughout all of the party. I bought cheap pillow cases in red and black at Walmart and threw them onto pillows we already owned. Since these were places where the kids sat, I just tossed the entire pillows into the sanitize cycle of the wash after the party. We used simple take-out boxes for the kids' lunches. I filled them with pre-packaged apple slices, pre-packaged cheese {similar to string cheese...but sans strings} and little rice crackers from the Asian food market. It was just enough for an early 10 am lunchie-lunch {plus cake and other goodies throughout the party}. This was one of the printables I created for the party. I just cut them out and rubber-cemented them onto the boxes. Another party printable I made was this juice-box wrapper. I may or may not have mixed my cultures a bit and bought a few things for Chinese New Year. This dragon was just too fun not to hang. The take-out boxes on the entry table are the take home favors. I used more take-out boxes on the mantel to dress it up a bit. I bought balloon sticks and balloons at HobLob then just taped them to the insides of the boxes to make them stand up straight{ish}. I covered them with the silver shreds. The banner-style I had seen over at Movie Muse. I used crepe paper and letters printed in Word {the font is called Chinese Take-Out}. The dragon was one of the engineering print pieces of art that I made for the party. I gave the tutorial on how to make those here. While we waited on other ninja friends to arrive, we had a little dragon art project {from Oriental Trading} that the kids worked on. It was a perfect time filler while we waited. The ornament that they created was just one additional take home prize for our Ninja friends. After the little ninjas ate their lunches, we played Pin the Beard on Sensei Wu. I made my own poster for this by taking a photo of a beardless Lego version of Sensei. I used the beards from Craft Interrupted and just resized them to fit our Sensei {I actually went a tiny bit too small, but that's okay...more like Pin the Goatee on Sensei}. I uploaded and printed this poster at Walgreens. We also had a dragon pinata, also from Oriental Trading. I purchased a bamboo stick thinking it would look super authentic with the theme and all. Not my finest hour. We found out that when bamboo breaks, it gets shards everywhere. And then it's really a crazy sharp weapon...in the hands of a bunch of six year olds. Niiiiice. We had lots of ninja fuel to keep the ninja's parents going, too. My Aloha Cheeseball was a big hit. You can find the recipe for it here. Frozen eggrolls were easy and a crowd-pleaser as well. The Fun and Fancy Fortune Cookies were my personal favorite. See the how-to for them here. I also did a couple of those engineering print posters for backdrops. Again, the instructions for this low-cost project can be found here. The Ninja cupcakes...well, they slightly resemble actual ninjas. Give or take. It was easy, though. Just yellow cake and red and black icing. The birthday boy seemed to still enjoy them. These are the take-home favors...in more take out boxes with thank you printables on top. They were filled with fortune cookies, Ninja rubber duckies {from OT} and little wind-up dragon toys {OT}. A lot of the ideas I implemented for this party were from Kara's Party Ideas {where the original party featured was from Anders Ruff}. I also loved lots of the tips {and I used the printable beards} from Craft Interrupted. The idea for the streamer banner came from Movie Muse. Lots of creative inspiration came from the Vixen Made Ninjago party, as well. Seriously. How did we plan our kids' birthday parties before Pinterest? Source List Take Out Containers: Dollar Tree {I recommend the red ones over the white...they were easier to peel the large sticker/price tag labels off of...by a long shot.} Square plates/table cloths/napkins: Dollar Tree Printables: I designed these myself. I plan to release some of them when I open my printable shop in April. Dragon items {except posters, which I designed}: Oriental Trading Red & Black Pillow Cases: Walmart Balloon Sticks, balloons, streamers: Hobby Lobby Fortune Cookies: Dollar Tree {i linky-party here} and at Coastal Charm and Savvy Southern Style Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing: Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Follow on Pinterest | Follow on Google+