Flashback Friday {Monster Bash}

Allrighty ya'll, today we're visiting the year of the Monster Bash.  AKA the year the PCP insisted on having his party at Chuck E Cheese.  People...have you seen the inside of a Chuck E Cheese?  Trust me when I say there's not much to work with, and bear with me as I share how we made the most of it.  

I took the picture for the invitation while on vacation in Rosemary Beach and with the assistance of three additional adults.  Almost as difficult a chore as making a party at Chuck E Cheese look cute.  We decided to make it a joint affair when the lady I talked to on booking the party mentioned that it would cost only five dollars for additional birthday children.  She had me at five dollars :-)

So here's where I landed... on our arrival, the table was set with oodles of Chuck E Cheese party ware.  I packed it all up to go home and started over with items to coordinate with the turquoise, lime and orange color scheme.  (The littles adored eating off of those CEC paper goods for weeks, by the way.)

For the party hats, I picked up a few packs of solid hats from Party City (so that I could sort through them for the turquoise, lime and orange ones).  I cut out a sundry of monster eyes (you know, one, two or three eyeballs per hat) and glued them on, before embellishing them with coordinating pom poms from Michael's.

The monster pinata was a lucky steal, marked down 90% at Target after Halloween.

The cakes were kind of the crowning glory of the whole shindig.  I used boxed mixes and baked them in stainless steel mixing bowls sprayed generously with Bakers Joy (that stuff is the be.oh.em.be.)!  I piped the icing on with a large star tip, used Oreos, Spree and M&M's for eyes, orange peels for the mouths and chocolate covered almonds for the ears.  I had no real plan going into this baking expedition and really just got creative with what I had laying around (ie. orange peels and left over Halloween candy).   

I've shared before my love affair with Marshmallow Pies.  For this event, a hasty addition of icing and M&M's made instant monsters.  The beauty of monsters is that there's nothing beautiful about a monster.

Like the party hats, I cut out googly eyes and glued them onto solid paper bags for favors. 

Each birthday we have a tradition of giving a themed book. In the inside cover I glue a copy of the birthday invitation and a picture of the birthday boy.  We then get all of the guests to sign it!  It's making for a sweet and useful collection.

And I'll leave you with the obligatory picture with the rodent himself...

Y'all have a great weekend!
xoxo