As promised, I am back with lots of photos of the party details. First, I want to show you the birthday boys, Kaiden and Malachi. This was Kaiden's first birthday and Malachi's third birthday. Both of my boys were born in January, with only four days separating the days, so a combined party is so easy. I settled on a theme months ago with hopes of getting a head start on decor and planning. Well I did some mental planning but that is as far as I got. Life with two little boy's, the hubby, a part time job, housework, Stampin' Up!, and all the other stuff is a pretty full schedule. I've learned that staying up late is usually my most productive time. So the past couple of weeks I've had a lot of late nights.
Kaiden was pretty oblivious to the party happening around him but Malachi on the other hand was beyond excited and couldn't wait for the party.
Malachi's favorite thing was the bounce house, we had to pry him away from it to do the cake and open his gifts. He didn't want to be bothered to eat, its not everyday that you have a castle in your backyard that you can jump in. My hopes of getting pictures of the boys together never happened but I was able to sneak a couple pics of myself with each of them. I love them and they are my world!
Now for the decor, I created two happy birthday banners with the Perfect Pennant Die and Typeset Alphabet from Stampin' Up! I added some cute little monsters that I printed and then cut out on a few of the pennants. I also created a banner with each of the boys names on them. I hung them all on the dinning area wall. I pushed our table against the wall for the drinks, cakes, cake pops, cupcakes, monster suckers, utensils, napkins, and plates. I had planned to put the food out on the table too but it was getting to crowded and I didn't want to ruin the cuteness of the table by cluttering it.
Just a side note, I believe you can click on the pictures to enlarge them so you can see them better.t
We live in SoCal so the weather is cold but no snow and thankfully no rain. Well it was even colder than normal so we couldn't plan for everyone to stay outside in the backyard so we emptied our house of our furniture in the living room and the family room and set up tables and chairs. I used orange, turquoise, lime green, and yellow as my colors. I did throw in a splash of pink for the girls but it was a boys party so we pretty much stayed with those four colors. For the center pieces I created monsters with tissue paper balls, pipe cleaners, googlie eyes, mouths that I cut out and hot glued on, and some fuzzy balls. Each seat had a monster coloring page that I got from Better Homes and Gardens website for free and a monster mask kit that I bought from Oriental Trading. There were buckets on each table with crayons for coloring.
One of my favorite things was the Adopt a Monster stuff animals. I found the idea at
One Charming Party blog with a pattern to follow. I asked my friend Monica for some help with the sewing. I wouldn't have been able to do it with out her or her mom. We were able to make 30 monsters for party favors and two large monsters for my boys for keepsakes. I will forever be grateful for their help!!!
To display the monsters at the party I used the entertainment hole in our living room. I made a banner that said Adopt a Monster to hang above the monsters. Each child chose a monster before they left the party. They also got a candy bag with a monster activity book, monster bubbles, and a 4 inch monster ball. Monster items came from Oriental Trading.
Since it was Kaiden's first birthday I needed a smash cake so my mom made the green and orange monster cakes. I made the cake pop eye balls and the monster cake pops.
As a kid I remember my mom making cakes for everyone's birthday but it had been years since she had done that. I guess the grand kids brought out the baker inside of her. I had seen the monster cake idea on pinterest from
Makoodle. I printed the cake idea and handed it over to my mom. She made two small cakes. I put one eyeball in Kaiden's and three in Malachi's since those were their ages.
I also decorated their initial as a display item for the table. I bought the letters at the craft store and the painted them. I was going to leave them like that but then decided to add the eyes, mouth, and antennas. I really like the way the monster initials turned out.
I purchased cupcakes from Sam's Club so that I didn't have to stress about them but they needed some personalization so I made monster picks to put on them. I printed the monsters and punched them out with the 1 3/8 inch circle punch and layered it on 1 3/4 inch circle and sandwiched a toothpick in between. I already owned the cupcake stands so that was a no brainer for displaying them on the table.
Also on the table was the monster bowl that held the monster suckers. I found this bowl at Marshall's. I added some crinkle paper, an eye, and a mouth and it transformed into a monster. The monsters were so cute, I got them from Oriental Trading too. They pretty much were the only place I found monster items at so I placed an order from them and even got free shipping.
The great thing about the bowl is I can reuse it in the house or for a gift with a plant or flowers.
For more monster personalization I added eyeballs to some of the drinking cups and the pails that held the utensils. Of course the napkins, cups, plates, and forks all matched the party colors. For food I served pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, chips, and lemonade.
This blog post is getting pretty long so I will share one more picture. I wanted to show you that I cut out monsters and put them around the house peeking out from behind pictures and mirrors. You can also see one of the centerpieces. on the console. There is another banner on the mirror and a couple of monsters on the vases. In the other room I made a banner of monsters that I hung on the fireplace, you can see it in the background of one of the other pics above.
I put a lot of do it yourself stuff into this party, it cost me a few hours of sleep but I loved how it turned out. After everyone had left and we sat on the couch worn out, Eric asked "was it worth it?" and I replied "yes." That was all that mattered. There was more that I wanted to do but didn't have the time or energy to do but it still turned out great. I love my boys and would do it over again in a heartbeat. Although I don't plan to have huge parties every year. I do plan to make each birthday a day to celebrate these precious boys that God has blessed us with.
One of the first stamp sets I noticed was retiring was Aviary. I don't know when I became such a bird lover but somewhere along the way I have bought just about every bird set SU! has come out with. Aviary was first on my list when it came out a couple of years ago. I will be sad that it will no longer be available but it will remain in my SU! stamp stash.
