Sunday, August 21, 2011

Batman Birthday Party

My baby is turning 3 today... I have mixed feelings. He is such a big boy... yet, he's still my baby. He LOVES Batman. So, we decided to do a Batman birthday party. Being the cheap person that I am (there's no way I'm paying $4 for a package of batman plates from the party store) and the fact that I love a craft project, I decided to make a lot of his party supplies.

I purchased the Batman Cricut cartridge from Ebay. Great purchase... only $14. With that, I started on the banner first. I also made a really cute invitation, but forgot to take a picture. I actually did splurge and buy helium balloons.
I made these cute treat boxes and water bottle labels with the Cricut as well. His birthday is Sunday, but we had the party on Saturday. So, I'm saving the cake for his birthday, but I thought it would be fun to make cookies for his party. I had an oval cookie cutter for the outside of the Bat symbol. Luckily, Michael's had started putting out their Halloween stuff, so I found a mini set of Halloween cookie cutters... bat included. I made chocolate fondant and dyed it black and cut out the bats.
And I refused to pay $20 for the Batman piñata at the party store (it's bad enough having to buy the candy). We just simply paper machéd a balloon with newspaper and spray painted it yellow. I cut the cute bat shield out on the Cricut and taped some curling ribbon to the back, then hot glued the shield to the balloon.
For the activities, we had the kids decorate their own masks with glitter glue and jewels.
I was quite surprised that even the boys really got into it.
We did face painting (not really a batman thing, but my kids just love face painting).
Luckily, my party store did have a few batman games on clearance. We bought a pin the bat symbol on batman and a joker target shooting game. (I forgot to take pics). We also made cotton candy... totally unbatman, but kids love that too.

And I couldn't have a batman party without Batman capes. Luckily, my mom has an awesome fabric stash, so it was free to make these. I kind of used this tutorial from Puking Pastilles. She has a pattern for sale as well. I just used the idea and made my own pattern out of newspaper. I cut the bottom out like a bat shape. Then I just serged the edges of the capes. I sewed velcro on the tabs to close them in the front. I downloaded a free Batman font off the internet and printed out the monograms. Then I appliquéd them onto the capes. My "T" already had a Batman cape, of course, so I made him a Robin cape.
And last, but not least, after the party was all over, I stayed up late to make my fondant covered birthday cake... for his Sunday family party. It looks so simple, but really was a bit of a pain.
Happy Birthday Big T!!!

Okay, what's my next project... bring it on:)