Our Low-Waste Wall-E Birthday Party Ideas
We love birthdays at our house. We also really, really love Wall-E. So, for our son's third birthday, he picked a Wall-E themed party. I was so excited! Not only was this an awesomely fun theme, but it also really suits our approach to life. We are trying to have a positive impact as a family, mostly because I don't want my kids growing up to be boneless, pointless, tied to a screen, and homeless because their world is drowning in garbage.
So, we have tried to change our relationship to the environment in our house. Our goal is to create less waste and more memories, to raise citizens and not consumers, and to not spend all our time cleaning. They are definitely lofty goals, but I think they are easier to reach than you think.
For example, with birthdays we keep the consumer part of it really simple. Our kid's birthdays has three elements:
1. One Gift. No seriously, we only give them one gift.
2. One Surprise. For this birthday, the bub got a surprise trip bowling with his cousins. Sometimes it connects with the birthday. This time, only so far as physical activity keeps you from becoming a sad space lounger.
3. One Birthday Party. We try to really commit to the theme and have lots of fun about it. They are also no gift parties, and our kids do not even care (it's true- they think that is normal)!
Ok! So you are actually looking for party ideas to get to, so let's get to it:
Decorations
To have eco-friendly decorations, we really stay out of the party section in stores and focus on making things or using used things instead. I also love a decoration that we can keep using past the party. We make a list of inspiration things and check out thrift stores to see if we can find any of them (like a rubix cube or lunchbox in this case). Then, we make things, often with secondhand materials. So simple, so cheap, and so good for the Earth!
Our first inspiration was Wall-E's home, which he decorates with Christmas lights, broken cd's, and forks. So we strung a bunch of lights, and then we hung old forks from a secondhand craft store and old cd's from Buy Nothing. People mostly didn't get it (not everyone saw the movie), but it really looked beautiful to have lights strung everywhere.
We also wanted to do the plant in a boot, so we used a boot I had already broken and put one of our basil plants in it. So simple, and not perfectly accurate, but it came out so cute! We kept it that way a long time.
We made a spaceship out of boxes, silver paint, and tin foil, but we left the majority of the walls bare so the kids could draw on it. We also made a big door, because doors are fun. The kids played in it all night, and it cost us zero dollars.
I have noticed that having wearable items can always make a party more fun, because it gives everyone permission to be silly. For this party, we made robots with tin foil and leftover buttons, containers, bottle caps, and doodads. We did it with our friends the day before the party, and it became its own party. The kids loved them, and I have so many cute pictures of them running around the house like robots. You could make ones closer to the ones in the movie too, if you like being more on point.
I also made a banner with the Wall-E font. You can usually find font sheets on Pinterest, and it doesn't take long to draw the letters, cut them out, and glue them to another piece of paper. It sets the scene.
The only things I really wanted to include that we didn't find were a lunchbox like his (no luck) and making an Otto pilot. But maybe you would have more luck tracking them down!
The only things I really wanted to include that we didn't find were a lunchbox like his (no luck) and making an Otto pilot. But maybe you would have more luck tracking them down!
Food
I think food is the most important part of a party, because it can look perfect, but if you don't feed people well, how welcome and comfortable will they feel? Just as important, food is a perfect opportunity to nail the theme without creating waste. We could buy a Wall-E plastic tablecloth that would just get thrown away OR use your regular white tablecloth and make the food match the theme. It will all get used up, you will wow your guests, and it costs about the same amount of money (because you have to feed them anyway). We love some theme food.
We made the cup labels by just printing it out off the internet. I cut the pieces out into stencils. We cut them out of construction paper and glued them together. It took about three episodes of Stranger Things.
Favors
We tend not to do favors (if we expect our guests no to bring gifts, it muddies the water to give them gifts), but if we were going to do one for this party, I think the obvious choice would be seeds or small plants! Kind of a cool thing for kids to play with once they get home to learn about how things grow.
Our bub had a great third birthday, and I hope your kid does too! I think the key most important thing is to focus on fun, not stuff. How can you turn your theme into play?
1 comments
this s a very cute idea for a party!
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