Spiderman Birthday Party: Part 4, Decorations

This is the fourth in a whole series of posts about my son's Spiderman Birthday Party Extravaganza!! Click here for Part 1: Theme and Invitations, Part 2: Dessert Table, and Part 3: Games and Activities. Stay tuned for Part 5: Food & Drinks, Part 6: Party Favors, Part 7: Daily Bugle Staff.

Note: If you're joining us from Amy Atlas, please read on for many more details and lots of photos.

Click here for a tutorial on how to make these Spiderman comic book letters.
Repurpose them after the party: These letters now hang in my son's bedroom!

"Cute as a button" pink and green babyshower

This past weekend was the babyshower of a dear friend and co-worker. Of course, I jumped at the chance to make her a diaper cake and wash cloth cupcakes...!

For our shower gift, I bought the parents-to-be a collection of classic board books. I bought seven books and attached tags with the days of the week. I used a "Dr Suess" font for the labels and off set the labelling akin to Dr. Seuss book titles. I put all of the books in a cute wooden bin wrapped in clear wrap, with a tag saying "A book a day is the Dr. Suess way..." The buttons on the tags tied in with the "Cute as a Button" theme.  

 

Very Hungry Caterpillar Lanterns

Do you remember this paper lantern caterpillar from the Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party that I had for my son's first birthday (i.e., 3 years ago)? Well, look at what I found on the Pottery Barn website recently...I guess great minds really do think alike! :-)

Pottern Barn Kids has a whole line of products based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar at the moment...I wish all this stuff had been around 3 years ago! 

Spiderman Birthday Party: Part 3, Games and Activities

This is the third in a whole series of posts about my son's Spiderman Birthday Party Extravaganza!! Click here for Part 1: Theme and Invitations and Part 2: Dessert Table. Stay tuned for Part 4: Decorations, Part 5: Food & Drinks, Part 6: Party Favors, Part 7: Daily Bugle Staff.

Note: If you're joining us from Amy Atlas, please read on for many more details and lots of photos.

Desserts are great and all, but, after a few awe-struck minutes, children really aren’t very interested in looking at pretty labels on a dessert table, so we had lots of fun, Spiderman-inspired activities for them too.  


When the children arrived at the party, they were given a set of Spiderman-shaped crayons and a Spiderman coloring book to keep them busy while we waited for the rest of the guests to arrive. I made the Spiderman-shaped crayons! Stay tuned for a tutorial. I also made speech-bubble-shaped name tags for the all the children too, so Spidey would know all their names! 

 


We had Spiderman (who was actually a girl!) come to the party to “teach” the children how to be super “Spider Children”. 

The children had fun just hanging out with Spiderman in the backyard. 

We then played a series of party games designed to "hone their spider senses". 


The first game, "WEB SLINGING" was a big hit with the children! I found a Spiderman glove that shoots out silly string (at Target) and I used it to create a game where the children took turns shooting at Doctor Octopus, Venom and Green Goblin on the spider web targets that I made. 








































































































































































The second game, "WALL CRAWLING" was supposed to involve an obstacle course race--the children were supposed to race up the rock climbing wall on our outdoor playground, down the other side, through a series of zig-zagged cones, and end with throwing a water balloon at a "bad guy" target. What actually ended up happening was that the children discovered the water balloons first and chased Spidey around the back yard throwing water balloons at Spidey! As long as they had a great time, I consider the game a huge success!! :-)

"WEB SPINNING" was a fun, indoor craft activity, in which the children wove their own spider webs using black wool and paper plates!! 

I love classic games (with a thematic twist), so we also played "PIN THE SPIDER ON THE WEB" and "WEB JUMPING" (musical chairs, but with web-shaped mats instead of chairs). The mats for the web jumping game were actually the place mats that I made for the table, which I "recycled" to be the mats for the game. 

We also had a spider web "FACE PAINTING" station, which the children loved (not sure about the parents!)

Finally, the children (and adults!) had a blast playing dress-up in the mock “CITYSCAPE PHOTO BOOTH”, which was another building backdrop (similar to the one for the dessert table), lots of old Halloween costumes and dress-up clothes, and speech bubble signs. We had Spidey takes lots of photos with all of the children in the photo booth. 

At the end of the party, each child was awarded a BACHELOR OF SPIDER SCIENCE, with "Marvel-ous honors" (for having honed all their spider senses) in a mock graduation ceremony from Spidey’s Superhero School. 

Stay tuned for Part 4: Decorations, Part 5: Food & Drinks, Part 6: Party Favors, Part 7: Daily Bugle Staff!!!

Back to "School" Party: Free Printables!

I'm co-room mom for my son's class this year. For our classroom Back to School party, my co-room mom and I were assigned orange as our table color, so we concocted the theme for the party around that color. We used a cute play on words, with an adorable little school of clown fish. Orange and white polka dots and stripes, little paper boats, and goldfish crackers rounded out the theme, which also eluded to a certain little cartoon fish, who was excited about the first day of school! I enlisted my dear friend Bird to help me with a set of printables to go with the theme. You can get a set of free printables here, courtesy of Bird's Party. Thanks Bird, for being such a great supporter of my blog and being a great friend!!

 

Stay tuned for the tote bag design that we came up with to continue this theme! :-)

Spiderman Birthday Party: Part 1 & 2, As Featured on Amy Atlas!

Okay, folks, here it is! As featured on AMY ATLAS!!!! :-)



I'm beyond thrilled and deeply honored that my son's Amazing Spiderman Party is being featured by Amy Atlas on her blog today! :-) Click here to see Amy's post about the party.

For those of you who have been waiting patiently to see these photos, here are the first and second parts in a whole series of posts (which will be added to this blog over the next several weeks) about the long-awaited Spiderman Birthday Party!! Stay tuned for Part 3: Games and Activities, Part 4: Decorations, Part 5: Food & Drinks, Part 6: Party Favors, and Part 7: Daily Bugle Staff.


Note: If you're joining us from Amy Atlas, please read on for many more details and lots of photos...

Spiderman Birthday Party:
Part 1, Theme and Invitations

The Marvel-ous theme for this party came (just as it should!) from the birthday boy himself—he just LOVES Spiderman; so, even though I’m not a huge fan myself and the theme is fairly commercialized, I set out to create an amazing Spiderman party for him! I envisioned something with lots of red and blue, skyscrapers, webs, spiders, and comic flair. I decided to go with the old Marvel Comics Amazing Spiderman, rather than the Hollywood movie Spiderman (which I find a bit creepy for a 4 year old!) I started planning a couple of months ago in order to be able to pull it all together in my limited free time. My amazingly talented friend, Bird, from Bird’s Party, was able to take my vision and design a set of custom paper printables for the party. Please visit Bird's Party for many more awesome party printables collections.

Here's the birthday boy, complete with his Spiderman gear...

If you missed the post about the invitations, click here. I made the invitations myself, using an electronic cutter to cut the black cardstock webbing for Spiderman’s face. The webbing was then glued to red cardstock. I backed the invitation with a Spiderman comic strip and topped it with a vellum sheet with the party details. I hand stamped the envelops with skyscrapers.

Spiderman Birthday Party:
Part 2, The Dessert Table

The focal point of the dessert table was a giant building backdrop that I drew by hand using thick, black permanent marker on foam board. I used foam blocks to connect the buildings to one another. I stuck a Spiderman wall decal on foam board too and suspended him in front of the building backdrop, with webs shooting out of his wrists, to create a 3D effect.

What do you think of the dessert table? I was really thrilled that it turned out the way I'd envisioned it in my head. Erin Homann Photography captured the event with her wonderful photography. Check out Erin's other work at Erin Homann Photography.

I designed the cake myself and had it made by a local San Antonio bakery.

I found a fabulous vendor on Etsy, Radiant Cakes, to make the cake pops. The cake pops came individually wrapped, complete with ribbon! And I heard that they tasted great; although, I didn't get to taste one because they were gobbled up really quickly by the children at the party! Visit Radiant Cakes for these and many other cake pop designs.

I also bought the Spiderman cookies on Etsy, from SweetLill (which was an equally sweet experience). SweetLill is a new vendor on Etsy, but has a very high quality product. The cookies was as tasty as they were beautiful. She even sent me some mini Spiderman cookies (but those didn't last until the party!) Visit her Etsy store for more cookie designs.

Last, but by no means least, the fabulous fondant cupcake toppers were also purchased on Etsy, from Village Cupcakes. These toppers were so adorable that most of the children took them home to "play with" rather than eating them! :-) Please visit Village Cupcakes for more cupcake topper designs.

And here is more eye candy from the dessert table....

I made the cupcake stands out of tin cans and cake boards! For a tutorial on how to make these type of cupcake stands, visit Bird's blog. I covered the tin cans with scrapbook paper from the printables collection and covered the cake boards with red construction paper. I drew webs on the construction paper and rimmed the cake boards with more webbing.

I also made these Spider lollipops. This is such an easy DIY, but if you need detailed instructions, please check back for a tutorial to be posted soon!

The birthday boy LOVES sugared marshmallows!

Stay tuned for Part 3: Games and Activities, Part 4: Decorations, Part 5: Food & Drinks, Part 6: Party Favors, and Part 7: Daily Bugle Staff.