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...

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.]

Snowman Playdate

We seem to have skipped winter here in Hampton Roads (I'm knocking on wood as I type this). Despite the lovely weather, we hosted a Snowman-themed playdate for our friends last week and have another one coming up this Friday.

The first snowman craft was very simple. I traced the circles on each piece of blue construction paper. We then instructed the kids to decorate the faces of their snowmen before adding the marshmallows. A thin line of craft glue on the traced circles and the kids were ready for the marshmallows. Pretzel sticks for arms and added crayon decorations were all that the kids needed to complete their snowmen. So easy! The only hard part was keeping the marshmallows out of the kids' mouths!


With two marshmallow crafts, I had to find a savory snack idea. These snowmen bagels were a hit! Only one little girl didn't eat her broccoli, otherwise every last bit was consumed. Carrot nose, olive eyes, sliced ham mouth, broccoli & string cheese ear muffs and a bagel with cream cheese to hold it all together. Yum!


I cheated with the next craft idea. We had previously made robots with marshmallows, spaghetti, pretzels and Wilton food markers, but this seemed like a great way to make snowmen as well. Naturally, the kids did not complain.


Someone really needs to remind me to check the settings on my cheap point-and-shoot camera. It was set to some outdoor setting and these pictures turned out funky. Oh, well!


The playdate ended with a snowman puppet show. I found this cute printable that Ian decided should be turned into puppets. They all figured out their family roles in this new snowman family and put on a show for the moms.


Let's hope the playdate on Friday goes as well as round #1!!!