We turned our backyard into a carnival. We had about ten game areas set up under a big tent, such a knock 'em down cats, a wheel of fortune, duck pond fishing, bean bag toss, balloon darts, ring toss and others. Everything was homemade and cost very little (except for the time in preparation). The kids played the games and won tickets which they redeemed for prizes at the end of the party for their goodie bags. For another party we took and planted about 150 poles in the ground and wrapped yards and yards of cloth around the poles to construct a giant walk-through maze. (I was lucky in that I was able to build the maze for our Brownie troop also, and I got the fabric as a donation from a major manufacturer). Finally, on a similar note, for one party we had a Halloween theme. I aquired a dozen large appliance boxes from a local retailer and connected them (four wide by three deep) to construct a haunted house. You entered in one door and were led (like a maze) through all the different rooms, with different features in each, like a flashing strobe light, a black light, eerie sounds, scary lit faces. It was built and painted to resemble the Norman Bates house. It was really awesome and completely kept the kids entertained going through again and again. We had spider cupcakes, create your own tombstone and monster relay races, where the kids had to run, skip, jump and walk like dracula, the wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, etc. Again, it cost very little except for the time invested. I hope these ideas help someone out because I'm sitting here idea-less and trying to think of something for the next party.