Monster Party Part 3: Let's Eat!

I cannot imagine hosting a birthday party and not serving food.  That being said, it can be incredibly difficult to present a well-balanced meal while still entertaining parents and eleven 5 and 6-year-old children.  Thank goodness Ryan was home for this party!

Theme food is also a must if at all possible.  I wanted to take things further than I did, but Ryan calling me "crazy" the entire week leading up to the party combined with real life forced me to draw the line eventually.

Pretty sure that the fruit monster throwing up was the highlight of the party for a few kids.  I will have to remember this for future Halloween parties.

These monster pizzas were very simple to make, but we needed plain cheese mini pizzas for the picky children.  I always fail to accurately predict how picky other people's children will be.  I don't really tolerate that sort of behavior from my own boys and didn't think it would be a big deal to just pick off 2 olives or 2 pieces of pepperoni.  For the most part, that was the case at this party.  Thank goodness!

Most of the remaining food is pictured below, but I completely forgot to take a picture of the "monster toes" aka pigs in a blanket.  We also threw together some "monster mix" which contained preztels, popcorn, cheese crackers and dried plantains.

The dining room before the kids covered it all in crumbs, frosting, etc.

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?

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.]