Preschool Age

• Young children are just learning to cut, fold and paste. Making crafts is fun for preschoolers, but it also gives them a chance to practice motor skills. Draw an empty ice cream cone at the bottom of a sheet of paper. On another sheet, draw a full page of ice cream scoops. Make copies of the cones on white paper and make copies of the scoops on brown, white and pink paper, or any other colors that represent ice cream colors. Have the children help you cut out the scoops. If they are too young to use scissors, cut out the scoops ahead of time. Let each child paste the ice cream scoops on their cones. Have crayons, colored pencils and glitter ready for them to further decorate their ice cream cones. This is a perfect craft to complement an ice-cream themed or make-your-own sundae birthday party.
  
  

Elementary-School Age

• As kids enter grammar school, they become a bit more sophisticated in their craft-making tastes and abilities. Kids usually love to paint. Purchase an unfinished birdhouse for each guest and 10 to 15 different colors of acrylic paint at your local craft store. Let each birthday-party participant express their inner artist by painting their birdhouses however they wish. Do the craft segment of the birthday party first so the birdhouses will be dry when it's time to go home. On the bottom of each birdhouse, write "Created by (child's name) at (child's name's) birthday party (date)." Have a length of wire, cord or rope and a hook ready to give to each child's parent so that the bird houses can be hung up at home.
  
  

Teens and Adults

• Purchase inexpensive plain flip-flops in a variety of sizes. Present each teen or adult with a pair of flip flops. Have several glue guns set up along with embellishments such as ribbon, silk flowers, beads, sequins, yarn and buttons. Set all of the supplies in the center of the work table for all to use, and let your party guests create their own special pair of decorative flip-flops. If you don't want the teens to fight over flip-flop colors, buy all the same color (white or clear).
  
  As so many people are into scrapbooking, consider a scrapbooking project. Take digital photos during the birthday party--opening presents, singing happy birthday, eating cake--and then have a scrapbooking session toward the end of the party. Bring out decorative scrapbook pages, fancy scissors and embellishments, along with copies of the pictures you took. Have each person create a scrapbook page for the birthday guest of honor. Put all of the pages into a new album. While the guests are scrapbooking, you can make mini-albums full of the birthday photos for each participant to take home.