Little Monster Party

That 1st year always seems to go so fast! For my 4th child, we celebrated her 1st birthday 2 days after Christmas! I was a little worn out (aren't all moms after Christmas?), but to me it's important that we do something special to mark this milestone.
I decided to try and see if I could do everything for the party with stuff I already had on-hand. It was easier to do than I thought. I picked a little monster theme. It wasn't my original idea, I have seen a few of these in bloggerville. But, it was simple and cute. So, the invites were made with scrap paper and pink felt. We just had a few friends over.

The Invitation:

We still had all our Christmas things up, but I wanted something that looked like a birthday party, and not just like Christmas (I think this will be a challenge her whole life- we've never had a December birthday in our family before!) So, I had left over green stuff from this Alien party
and pink stuff left from this Princess party so we combined them. My kids put eye balls on the balloons and tissue puff balls, but they are facing the other way, so you can't see them in this picture.

The Food:

For the food we had a chicken soup, veggies, and cheese ball and crackers, and these little monster sandwiches above. (Sorry, I'm a terrible photographer- no close-ups!) We cut the cheese jaggedly to look like teeth, and the eye balls are olives stuffed with cream cheese tooth-picked to the top. They turned out cute. Also some fruit with a "monster fluff" fruit dip (marshmallow cream and cream cheese with a few drops of neon green food color) I made Oreo truffle pops and dipped them in green chocolate, then added mini marshmallows and mini chocolate chips to them to be the monster eyes. Some had 1 eye, some 2 eyes, and some 3 eyes.
It's best to stick them in a block of Styrofoam, but I didn't have any, so I wrapped some empty cardboard boxes in wrapping paper, and stuck the pops in it. It worked great, and I think the pink boxes looked really cute on the table.
The polka dots tied all the party theme together, and it was really easy to add eye balls to about anything. Even the oranges on the fruit tray had mini marshmallows and whole cloves stuck in them to look like monster eyes. My daughter donned her polka-dot dress, and doesn't look like a monster at all! (I know- she's adorable!)

The Cake:

The cake was really simple. I used 2 6" pans, and 1/2 of my ball cake (one pan). I made each layer a different color to make it fun. After it was all stacked, I used my huge star tip and just piped the pink frosting on so it looked like crazy monster fur (super easy!) I forgot to set aside icing for the eyes (I had made it all pink!) So I just cut a marshmallow with scissors, and stuck 2 Jr. Mints on. Worked great!
The funny thing was, although my daughter had fun blowing out the candle, she actually doesn't like sweet stuff (except for apples) so, she didn't want to eat any of the cake. Instead she had a great time feeding spoonfuls of frosting to my friend. (I was holding her- ere no pictures)

The Pinata:

That big pink furry monster on the far left is actually a pinata! It was really fun and easy to make. We blew up a balloon (actually 2 so my kids could each work on their own), and used this recipe for the paper mache paste:

2 cups flour
2 cups water
1 Tablespoon salt

Just mix it together, and dip your strips in it, squeeze the extra paste off between your fingers, then lay the strips on the balloon.

We only did 2 layers on each one... it really needs like 5, but we were 1st timers at this!

They hung to dry overnight (they need a few days), and yes, we couldn't resist making lots of jokes about out balls hanging over the dining table!
When we filled her with goodies, she ripped, hence the duct tape fix, and the pretty bow to cover the duct tape!
Hope you enjoyed seeing our little thrown together monster party! Since we did it so frugally, with stuff we had on hand, we were able to spend more on the birthday gifts!
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