Monster Party; It's in the details...

As I mentioned in my previous post, this year's party theme was chosen by Zavion himself, and was 'Monster Bash.' Also, as I mentioned earlier, I made pretty much everything myself. I had so much response from what I did from so many people, that I thought I would go though what I did here to show everyone a little of the 'magic' behind how I did some things...lol (and, hey, maybe someone just might be inspired by something I did...maybe)!
So, without further ado, here are some pictures of my boy's special day...

Some of the decorations...

I always try to make a sign for the guests as they come in the front door. This was one of my easiest, since I was able to use a piece of scrapbook paper the base of the sign. Add some letters (courtesy of my bff's Cricut) and some monster eyeballs, and my favorite a mini feather boa to look like monster fur (from Micheal's) & voila!


I wasn't super-thrilled with how this turned out. I think I took too much time cutting out those darn 5s & the Z from the foam board (turns out foam board is not so easy to cut through) and lost focus of the 'big picture.' I realized a few days later why it seemed so...blah...I was going to make some monsters to kind of go between the pic frames & totally forgot...oops!
So, what I did do: the frames are holding pics from each of Z's birthdays then #5 is on the wall behind. At the last minute, I realized I had some extra 'fur' (more of those mini boas from Micheal's) so added that to the bottom of my candles than taped an eye to each of them. Funny because I think I got more compliments on those than anything else!


A closer shot of the 5s & Z...I think they turned out pretty cute!
Oh, I grabbed these adorable monster buckets (and the matching picture frames) from the Target dollar sections...like I said, I love a bargain! ;o)


I decided I wanted a pennant style birthday banner this year, and love how it turned out! This was a pretty basic design:
I cut out the triangles (green textured scrapbook paper with the patterned scrapbook on top) by hand, but used the Cricut again to cut out the letters. The monsters were a bit more time consuming. The monsters I got from a birthday card (just scanned onto the computer) and tile printed. Then I taped the pieces together and had to fill in the colors with Sharpies (the time consuming part!).


Just a piece of 'fur' with some googly eyes thrown on. I would have liked to have had more fur, but at $10/yd (yikes!) and my really long table, it just wasn't very feasible.


The food...

My favorite thing from the party! I made these paper cones (using direction from over at Hostess With The Mostest) and filled them with green caramel corn (just added some green food coloring to the caramel as it was cooking). Then I put them in a candy corn filled shadow box (bought from Micheals) that I had covered with more 'fur.'


Another shot of the caramel corn cones. The kids loved being able to just grab these & walk around munching on caramel corn!


I thought I had a genius idea to make mini caramel apples, but it turned out there are several sources out there that had already done it (including Family Fun) I foll wed the advice from some of the commenters who suggested using caramel apple wrappers to make it stick better to the apple. That seemed to work pretty well...the only problem was keeping them cool enough for the caramel to not melt. I put mine in the freezer, but then the apples got a little soggy after they thawed. So, I'd say it's best to make these right before you're going to serve them.


And...the FUN!

Zavion requested apple bobbing as a party game...
Oh, and I bought these adorable (and perfectly sized!) tins in the Target dollar sections for $2.50/ea.


It was lots of fun!


Monster bingo! I bought this bingo pack at Target during last year's ('09) Halloween clearance).


The kids got to color & decorate their own monster masks. They had these adorable books of masks (all different themes too; Wild animals, pirates, etc) at Joanne's Fabric for only $1!


And, 'monster mash', which was basically musical chairs. We let the kids dance to some monster themed music (Monster Mash, Purple People Eater...) then stopped the music for the traditional musical chairs. The kids enjoyed really getting to bust some moves!


I was watching Oprah the day before Z's party, and who was on but Martha Stewart herself. Well, she was showing off her fancy shredding scissors & inspiration struck! I thought it would be a cute way to jazz up the plain loot bags for the kids. So, I used my plain (non-fancy) scissors to 'shred' the bags, than added monster faces (using scraps of paper from the other projects). I was very happy with how they turned out!


So, there you have it! That's how I made the monster party happen! Hope you enjoyed looking through my pics and ideas! :)