Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Monster Party Part 2: Monster Faces

Monsters, monsters and more monsters!  Maybe I went a little overboard with some of the details.  I spent every evening the week prior to the party cutting and gluing.  I love my Cricut and I love the monster theme set I purchased HERE on Etsy.

The birthday hats were created with shapes cut from the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge.  Nathan insisted on the pom poms.


Play-Doh remains a favorite of ours so I thought it would be a great addition to the goodie bags.  However, I couldn't just toss in a container.  Oh, no!  Each must be transformed into a monster!  Most of the features were Cricut leftovers from the hat project and a few had mouths from the Etsy set linked above.


Juice box monsters were a must!  The handcut monster feet didn't really photograph well, but I know they're there.  :)  A multipack of google eyes provided more than enough eyes to decorate 20 juice boxes.  The mouths and feet were from the Etsy set. 


I am pretty sure the parents were thrilled to drink out of cups with google eyes and water bottles wrapped in monster labels.  Wouldn't you be?

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Monster Party Part 1: Cupcake Monster Factory

Saturday's Monster Birthday Party was a success!!! I'll be uploading photos all week to share all of the details with you.

The kids really enjoyed creating their own monster cupcakes. They all turned out so cute! I don't have photos of the kids' creations since I was passing out the parts to everyone, but I did make sure to set aside a few parts so I could make my own after the party.


Below is a plate full of chocolate arms, mouths and a few horns. The chocolate pieces were more durable than I expected.


Our second plate of parts contained eyes, horns and noses.


Here is the birthday boy constructing his monster cupcake.


Mom's cupcake #1. The icing I made was a bit too stiff, but I ran out of time and could not go back to fix that. So, next time I'm hoping for better fur and better spikes.


Mom's cupcake #2. I believe I had just as much as the kids fun making my monster cupcakes. What else can I make out of chocolate to decorate cupcakes? Of course, it would be for the kids...

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Party Preview

Today's main party preparation project was making monster "parts" for Saturday. My plan is to make cupcakes with crazy frosting that the kids will then decorate with these "parts" to create their own monster cupcakes. Sounds like a fun idea, right? Have I ever worked with chocolate (other than spooning it into chocolate molds)? Heck no! Today I managed to fill 6 cookie sheets with hand-piped monster eyes, noses, horns, teeth and arms!


My thanks to Ryan for providing me with a handful of sketched parts. We all know I cannot draw anything to save my life.

As I fumbled my way through this creative project I kept reminding myself, "this is a party for a 6-year-old and his friends". This seemed to calm me. Let's hope these kids aren't too critical!

Now I must return to the preparations as I still have to glue a bunch of cut-out eyeballs to peanut butter cups (duh), wrap plastic utensils and napkins with cute labels, wrap water bottles, etc. I am an idiot. [The best part about all of this is that Ryan is folding two loads of laundry for me while I type this.]

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Nathan is SIX!!!

Happy 6th birthday to our sweet "baby" boy!!! How fast the time goes!


Back to the party prep...The big party is this Saturday and I have gone a little over the top with this year's Monster theme. Darn you, Pinterest!!! I'll be sure to post lots of pictures so we can share this event with friends and family far away.