MONSTERS INC B-day party 2012

My sons are 18 months apart and I decided to throw a combined birthday for the 2 of them in the middle of both their birthdays. July 2012. A bright sunny day. Of course, when I asked them which theme they wanted my 2 and 3 year old jumped up and down in excitement..MONSTERS INC! Monsters Inc? Their favorite movie, of course! But, its challenging to find Monsters Inc party supplies since this movie came out..humm 10+ years ago! I knew I would have to put my thinking cap on and come up with some ideas. VisitaPrint.com was a huge helper. Since we order my husbands business cards from their website I scored some sweet deals and got special discounts. I scored awesome deals on EBay as well.

I made these Scream canisters out of Pringle cans. I used some cans, spray paint, electrical tape,duct tape and a red Sharpie. I added a bunch of goodies inside and handed them out as kids left the party. They also added more Monsters Inc decor to the party.

 

Inside I placed candy, and monster theme goodies. Plastic glow in the dark fangs, monster stickers, monster tattoos, monster fingers and bubbles.

 

To make the Monsters inc bubbles I purchased party favor bubbles from the Dollar Tree and Googled some free Monsters Inc clip-art. I re-sized them to fit onto printable Avery envelope labels and typed in a special birthday message next to the clip art. Once I attached the label onto the bubble, I covered it in clear tape so that the bubble liquid wouldn't make the ink run. My sons loved the bubbles and it added more Monsters to the theme! =)

Sure, I could of just purchased any ol' pinata and throw a Monsters Inc plate onto it...But, that would have been boring! Plus, my sons deserve the best! I got busy and made my own Mike pinata! For the shape I used one of those huge punch balloons.  To make the mixture I just used some flour and added boiled water to it. Kept stirring until it was a thick enough mixture. I also added some salt to the mixture to help keep it fresh. I added some Elmer's glue for added structure. Towards the end I added some green paint to the mixture as well to help with the painting process.  For the finishing touches I had to use Spray paint to paint Mike, one coat and that was that.

 

 My sister-in-law was an angel and got me a pinata in Mexico. It was nice to have both. This one was HUGE and the kids had a blast with all that candy!

 

 I collected huge cardboard and painted them into doors. My first thought was to tie them up onto a huge rope and drape them across our vaulted ceilings. But, my husband never got to it...(the only thing I needed him to do that day..cant live with him/cant live without him!) We ended up just placing the doors along the fence in our backyard. It looked just as nice and added more decor to the party, (and don't tell him, but I liked his idea better. =P )

Our entrance was also decorated with Monsters Inc decor. I got a white table cloth and turned that into Boos door.
                                 

 I customized a lawn sign from Vista Print (got the image from Google.) We got some blue and green card stock and cut out Mike and Sully's footprints and taped them on the entrance way that was leading to Boos door. I was also lucky enough to have my sister in law get some Monster Inc cut outs that looked great on our lawn.
                                      

I customized the invitations and ordered them from Visita Print..along with this customized party sign.
                                     

 

I put my brother-in-law to work and he drew out a huge picture of the two main monsters Mike and Sully. He also added a third monster, we planned on cutting its face out so the party go-ers can stick their head in it and pose...but, I though the monster was too cute to cut out! lol.

 

To add more to our theme I decided to make some Mike and Sully party hats. I used green and blue card stock paper and traced a old party hat out. I could have added string to my hats, but I just glued them onto old ones to give them more support.

For our table center pieces I made some monsters out of recycled cardboard paper towel rolls. I glued on felt and used googly eyes and pipe cleaners for details. I glued them down on a large paper plate and cut tissue paper into small squares. I took the paper and glued them around the monster. I added some rocks inside the roll to help hold them down and I glued two printouts together that read, "Happy Birthday.." I also customized those using VistaPrint.

(SORRY! My centerpiece picture won't upload. Keep looking for a blog on how to make centerpieces!)

 

Using card stock I made some little Monster heads to add some "monster" to plain birthday banners.

 

Turned this old Elmo birthday banner into a Monsters Inc one with some stickers and googly eyes. ;)

 

 

 I purchased some red fire chief hats from Oriental trading and spray painted them light blue. Using Avery label sheets I printed out the Monsters Inc logo and stuck them onto the hat. These made great Monsters Inc hard hats like the ones each monster wears in the movie. Each kid got to take home a hard hat along with their goody can!

I also, made some Monster mouths using card stock and colored sticks from the Dollar Tree. The kids loved them...

..(oh, the adults loved them too!)

GAMES- we did a Monster Toss game. The kids had to "feed" the Monster. My brother-in-law (dang, I love my in-laws!) is such an artist..(all of the art you see is done by him.) He drew a monster from Monsters Inc and we cut out his mouth. We had a few soft baseballs and the kids tried throwing the balls into the monsters mouth. This game was a hit for kids all ages.

 

I spray painted some small cans and turned them into monster theme using some stickers and paint. The kids had to knock the cans down with the bean bags my wonderful sister sewed up. Also, a huge hit for all the kids.

 

                                               

 Pin the tail on the donkey? No way, this is a monster bash not a Shriek party! We drew up Celia (Mikes girlfriend.) Using Avery sticker sheets (large label sheets) I traced her eye ball and made a bunch of copies. We had PIN THE EYE ON THE MONSTER! 8-)

We played limbo, I just got a stick and wrapped it up with green and blue crate paper and hot glued on some googly eyes. We played the limbo song off of YouTube.

We also did freeze dance. I purchased a Monsters Inc CD from EBay..but my sons had to freeze dance to, LMFAO, "Sexy and I know it." Haha.

I took some ping pong balls (beer pong balls, for you younger ones ;-] ) using a Sharpie I drew on 1 eyeball. For the eyeball race we lined the kids up and they had to run down the lawn with the ball on the spoon and try not to drop the ball. No hands and no dropping! We played this a couple of times since the kids had so much fun.

 

Aside from all the games we had lined up, we also had a jumper for the kids to bounce around in and a swing set. Kids were running wild all day and having a blast!

 

FOOD- We had a taco lady come out and make tacos all day. Came in handy. But, we also had a table out with some snacks on it...
-Chips- Monster toes
-Cheese strips- I cut into thin triangles and labeled them as monster nails and fangs/teeth
-Dinosaur chicken nuggets- Hey, they looked like monsters! hehe! So we just re-named them to monster nuggets!
-Fruit- I got a watermelon and attempted to turn it into a Monster head. haha. I ran out of time so it took a few minutes. we just added some fruit around the head. Added a cute look to the snack table.
-Pigs in a blanket- My sister shaped them more like toes and we labeled them, "Monster toes!"

(For some odd reason I'm having issues uploading a few pics so maybe in a future blog I will have one dedicated to the monster food!)


We decorated some plain boring water bottles and turned them into Monsters!

 I was planning on doing a huge cake for my sons, but ran out of time. Luckily, I made cake pops and cupcakes. I printed up some pictures from Google and pasted them onto card stock, taped it onto a colored tooth pick and stuck them in the cupcakes. The cake pops were decorated in Purple and bright green and turned into monsters. My cake pop stands were made out of Styrofoam covered in foil "tissue" paper.

 

 

My sister in law also printed up some Monster Inc pictures and turned them into some cute covers for chocolate bars.

 

 I made my cupcake stand out of extra materials I no longer used. Wine glass, small vase and some serving trays. The pictures explain it all. =)

 

 

I also ordered these monster lollipops from Oriental trading. And added some Tootsie Roll pops with them. I Made a cute lollipop stand out of the same materials used for the cake pop stands.

Our dessert table was covered by a Monster table cloth and had a bunch of Monster Inc toys along it (I lucked out and found some on EBay for a good price.) I also lucked out and found Monsters Inc party plates, cups and hats at a dollar store.

 

It took a lot of work, but was well worth it. Months of planning and I would do it all over again just to see those smiles on my sons face. They loved every moment of it and it will be a party we will always remember. I definitely will be going all-out on their next combined birthday party in a few more years. I pray its a theme I will enjoy too! =)