DIY Birthday Decorations for Boys

Paleontologist Party

• Dedicate a day to the little dino hunter with a sandbox dig and a castaway cake to dig into. Hot-glue bits of moss, tiny decorative eggs and plastic dinosaurs to plain baseball caps and write each guest's name on the cap using a laundry marker. Pass out hats and collectors' beach pails and shovels at the door. Personalize pails with scribbled-on names and dinosaur stickers. Cover the party table in green crepe and set a smokin' chocolate sheet cake crawling with model dinosaurs in the middle of it. In a center cut-out in the cake, plunk a papier-mache volcano, hiding a chunk of dry ice inside to make smoke spew out the top. Let the kids dig for dinosaur specimens in a couple of kiddy pools partly filled with sand. Don't forget to bury lots of plastic dinosaurs before the party, reserving a few for poky paleontologists who might be discouraged if their pails don't fill up fast enough.

Candy Land Kids

• Create a life-size children's classic game, Candy Land, for young party-goers. Double-stick tape will hold a trail of colored cardboard spaces on the floor of the party room. An archway of colored balloons is the Candy Castle at the end and leads to the cake table. Christmas candy-cane lawn decorations make a great Peppermint Forest. Empty wrapping paper tubes covered in white paper and topped with inflated balloons, then wrapped in clear cellophane and tied with curling ribbons become Lollipop Lane. Cardboard stapled into squat circles and covered in colored crepe paper get piled up to become Gumdrop Mountain. Chocolate-colored, paper-covered flat boxes are the Chocolate Swamp. Hand out colored party hats at the door as each guest becomes a game piece and begins to move on the board. The birthday boy gets to roll large giant dice in the middle of the game board for each turn.

Speedy and Simple

• A last-minute party or an over-scheduled party planner won't spell disaster when you decorate the party space with lots of color. Blow up enough balloons to garland the room from corner to corner. Use a large needle -- a sail repair needle or an upholstery needle -- to thread string or thin-colored ribbon through the lip of each balloon and tape them to the ceiling or tie them to tall furnishings to drape the room. Cover the table with a solid-color paper cloth and unroll birthday wrapping paper down the middle as a table runner. Instant party decor -- and you can add colored plates, cups, a punch bowl and a store-bought cake with a tiny toy truck or other favorite icon on it for a festive, super-quick celebration.

Extra Added Attraction

• Make a photo booth in the corner of the party space to produce custom favors for guests to take home. A hinged three-way screen, covered in strips of giant posters, provides the backdrop for the shoot. Angle a couple of garden grow-lights, an adjustable floor lamp or reproduction spotlights at the screen. Behind the screen, hang old Halloween costumes, cast-off clothing, capes and whatever else imagination might turn into an original get-up. Stuff a vintage trunk to overflowing with fake wigs, hats, eye-patches, goofy bow-ties, clown noses and other accessories and lean a tall mirror against the wall. Hand out party bags filled with fake mustaches, plastic blackout or buck teeth, stick-on face tattoos and crazy glasses. Invite guests to dress-up for a formal portrait -- a digital camera on a tripod, a costumed photographer and a nearby color printer do the honors.