Super Hero Party

My Son turned 3 yesterday and thanks to Pinterest I have been planning his party in my head for a few months. Unfortunately life got super busy and I wasn't able to put all the fun Pinterest ideas into action, but I did get a few done and than I came up with a few of my own ideas to make things easier for me.
I knew one thing I really wanted to do was to have masks for all the kids, I got a template here

Some of the masks I had seen had two different colors and so you could see the outline of the different color along the edge. I attempted this but I realized too late my big mistake. I cut all the masks the same size and thought I would just off set the contrasting color when I sewed it, but that just made it difficult to keep my stitch lines looking nice. Next time, if there is a next time, I will make the contrasting color bigger so that when I sew it I only have to worry about sewing around the edges of the front piece. But these 3 year olds didn't even notice my sewing flaws!

I had wanted to make capes but it was going to be a little too expensive and tricky. I thought about making arm cuffs, but after sewing the masks I knew that was not an option for me. Ten days before the party I was at a friends and Cooper was playing with her sons Captain America shield. It was essentially a Frisbee with a handle. So I decided to have the kids decorate their own Frisbee shields at the party. I got Frisbees from discountmug.com and when I ordered 12 blank Frisbees they were only 58 cents a piece and they did free shipping, and they were delivered to my door in 6 days. I was two Frisbees short because I didn't think about counting how many kids would be there before I placed my order, ( I also wished I would have thought about ordering red ones). I ended up getting some Frisbees from the dollar store last minute and made this great Captain America shield for Cooper. The dollar store Frisbees were bigger, flat and I got a red one so that I could just use a little blue and white sticker foam to make this. After I had all the Frisbees I saw some at Walmart for only 50 cents, I should have known!

Once I got the frisbees we drilled four little holes in them so that I could loop elastic through them to use as a handle.

The kids had a fun time decorating their shields, we used the sticker foam and I used cookie cutters to make an imprint so that it was easy to cut out shapes and letters for them. I also had pre cut foam sticker letters and some Avengers stickers they could use.

I also found Batman, Spider-Man, and Avengers valentines at the dollar store. I used the valentines to make banners to hang up around the house and I used the stickers, magnets and tattoos to put in the treat bags along with some Super Hero Pez dispensers, Ring Pops, and stretchy flying super hero toys.

I always like to do a pinata at birthday parties. They are so easy to make and kids love them. I mix 1 part flour to 2 parts water and then I used an old magazine and cut it into strips and then just dip the strips and cover a balloon leaving a 3-4 inch hole at whichever end you want at the top. I usually do one layer, let it dry over night, then once it is dry I tie string all around the pinata tying it at the hole so that it will hold, then I do another good layer of soggy magazine strips. I let it dry overnight and then on day 3 I pop the balloon, but only if it is COMPLETELY dry. Then I paint it. The balloon is a great head shape. In the past I have done Mr. Potato Head, Foofah- from Yo Gabba Gabba, and this year I did Spiderman. Also you only need 2 layers of paper mache to make a good breakable pinata. Year one I did like 6 layers and when the pinata rope broke and the pinata fell to the ground it barely cracked and my husband ended up having to stomp on and tear open the pinata. Year two I did 3 layers and it was still a little too sturdy and my husband had to stomp and tear it open. this year it cracked open from the wacking of a 3 year old, but we still needed to do a little tearing to get all the candy out.

We had an obstacle course set up for the super heroes to practice their moves. We kept it simple, first they had to fly and weave around some boxes, then they had to crawl through a tunnel, then jump over some smaller boxes and then finally stand on the foot rest and jump into a pile of pillow. With 12 little kids it was chaos but they loved it.

 

After the obstacle course I had a gang of bad balloon bandits hanging outside. I had taken balloons, put a glass rock marble think in them to weight them down a little, and then blew them up. Then I used black duck tape to make a mask and cut out 2 inch circles from label paper and cut the circles in half to make eyes. I drew in pupils and frowny mean mouths and hung about 15 of those bad guys from our overhang outside. The kids loved punching and fighting these bad guys. It was so fun to watch and the best part was at the end any that hadn't popped were tangled together in a bunch, just like a group of villains in the movies! I wish I had a picture of that but they got cut down before I got the picture.

For lunch we had Wonder Dogs, Mighty Mac &Cheese, Power Puff Cheese Puffs, fruit and a spider man cake.

I loved dreaming about some darling ideas I got from pinterest but in the end I didn't have time to make a city skyline back drop or cute labels and food wrappers. We still had a fabulous party! And of course I wish I had gotten some better pictures...