Planning a birthday party for your kids can be really stressful for some of us.

Some mums are naturals at throwing epic soirees, but some of us struggle a little. And then there’s the time and effort it can take, even if you ARE good at it, with all the other things you have going on.

Let’s face it, none of us want our kids to have a cruddy party. But you don’t have to be up for nights on end hand-sewing bunting and making fondant figurines to top the cake with if that isn’t your forte.

Here’s our top tips to give your kid an awesome party that’s as stress-free as possible for you!

1. Invites

If you’re having a party at a venue like an indoor play centre, laser tag or rollerskating rink, there is often a minimum number of guests you need to have to book a party and you will have to pay for that many kids whether they show or not. It can be tricky because you pay per head and obviously you don’t want to pay for no-shows.

If you’re having a party at home, you can invite as many or as few kids as you want. And despite what anyone tells you, you do NOT have to invite the entire class, unless you want to.

Lots of kids actually prefer smaller gatherings, so only inviting their closest friends is usually fine by them.

You can choose your invites to match your theme. These cute customised invites from Pink Frosting are cheap as chips.

2. Themes

If you’re going with a theme, you don’t need to go overboard and make it overly complicated for yourself if you don’t want to. For every theme that is really easy to source decorations for, your little darlings might insist on wanting an obscure TV show or movie or book to be their theme.

Remember that classic themes never go out of style and are always easy to find bits and pieces for. Fairy tales, princesses, jungles, pirates and so on.

Pink Frosting has a range of different theme categories for your kids’ next party to help make it easy.

3. Food, glorious, food

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there’s always heaps of food left over so if you think you’ve got too much you most certainly probably do!

If you’re having a theme you can get creative and have some of the food items reflect your theme.

Don’t forget you can include some nutritious food as we’ll, it doesn’t all have to be sugar and chips and hot dogs. Usually fruit platters and fruit kebabs get hoovered up by children at my kids’ parties.

4. Birthday cake!

If you’re someone who can whip up one of those 3D cake masterpieces that looks like it belongs in a magazine, more power to you and I envy you. For the rest of us, the struggle is real. If you can’t afford to pay someone to make an epic cake, there’s no shame in trying other things. One genius hack is the humble cake topper, which you can often get to fit just about any theme and the kids love these because they keep them as toys afterwards.

Or instead of an entire cake, how about cupcakes? You can stack them up so they look awesome using a special stand like this one from Party Supplies Now.

5. Trusty classics

You know no matter how much you spend on cute-but-expensive props, the kids are going to go crazy for the old party favourites anyway. I’m talking balloons, bubbles, piÃ±atas, loot bags, pass the parcel, Simon says and crazy dancing. Either hepped up on red cordial or without.

If you’re time-poor, you can grab all this stuff from the comfort of your own living room. You don’t even need to put on pants! I love this cute lady beetle piÃ±ata from Pink Frosting. I want one for my own birthday.