Silent auction items can play a major part in fundraiser events.   They raise money for the event and provide some fun for the guests.  For a couple of years, I was fortunate to work with a small group of very talented women/friends on auction items (among other things) for a fundraiser.  Here are some of the children’s silent auction items/baskets we had put together.  I will feature some other types of auction items we had put together in other blog posts.

We did two Lil’ Baker Baskets for kids.  This one was geared for a girl.  We stocked this basket with all sorts of baking items such as cake mixes, a child’s rolling-pin, chocolate and peanut butter chips, and cookie cutters.  We also included “cupcake couture” items like sprinkles, icings, and pretty yellow bloomin’ (flower) cupcake wrappers.  A teddy bear was put in the basket too.

If you would like to know more about how to build a basket like this one or others, please click here for my previous blog post, “Kids’ Party Ideas“.

This Lil’ Baker Basket was geared towards a boy.  We stocked the basket with all sorts of fun baking items such as cake mix, a child’s rolling-pin, sprinkles, cupcake wrappers, icing, cookie cutters, chocolate and butterscotch chips.  We also included a cupcake stand with this basket.  We topped off the wrapped basket with a “squishy guy”!

The 2 baskets after being set up for display and ready-for-bidding at the fundraiser event.  One of my co-workers had sewed darling aprons that were included as part of each basket.  As you can see from the photo, she sewed a blue apron for the boy and a pink one for the girls’ basket.

Another year we had a great basket of  books for the auction.  We took a large laundry basket (stuffed the bottom of it to give the items height) and filled it with all kinds of wonderful & favorite books for kids.  We added some fun goodies to the basket too.

All set up at the auction…

You may want to consider having some Lil’ Artists Baskets such as we had:  “For the Young Monet”, “Young Picasso”, and “Young Renoir”.  These baskets included everything for a budding artist to get started such as animal and funny people sketch books, a doodle book, modeling clay, paint posters, watercolor paints, and drawing pencils.  Once we set these up for display at the event, we added some actual (used)  artist sketch pads and watercolor crayons for interest.  Lil’ Artist Baskets work especially well if your fundraiser has artwork as part of the silent or live auction also.

Another idea is Lil’ Martha Baskets – baskets filled with kids’ craft items and projects

How about a “priceless item” like a “Girls’ Cheer Party (or Poms, etc.)”?!  This item is particularly great for a school-type fundraiser.  Ask 3-4 cheerleaders from your local high school to volunteer, and teach cheer and dance moves for 1 – 1 1/2 hours at the party.