Joey has THAT kind of Mom

Yep, that's right. This year, I became the kind of Mom that went a little psycho with the birthday party. It was totally awesome for me, but I fear it may become a little more embarrassing for him as he gets older. I made EVERYTHING. Except for the food. I wouldn't dare do that, but besides the food, I made every thing. I mailed out invitations (I made!) a couple weeks before the party, and our theme was monsters. For those of you who plan on doing monster theme parties for your little one, know this. I looked everywhere for monster stuff. No one has it! We went to Party City and the party sections in all major department stores (Target, Walmart, Meijer, etc.), and we found zilch. I eventually found some party favors at Oriental Trading, who, frankly, has everything. So it ended up working in the end, but maybe I'll say that's why I made everything. Yeah, that'll be my excuse.

These are the invitations I mailed out. I used my Mini Monsters cricut cartridge and some of my favorite embellishments. It was a pretty simple design, which I liked about it. I'm trying to get more streamlined in my designing. As you can see, there were 3 designs, and this theme went throughout the whole party. Again, as I like to protect the innocent, sorry for the little black boxes, but this time I'm protecting myself. So deal with it.
So I got my RSVPs, and all Joey's little friends came. We had our 3 friends from playgroup and our next door neighbor. It was crazy! We had 4 small children running around the house along with their 4 dads. So, basically, I guess you could say we had 4 small children and 4 big children running around like hooligans. It was a blast, but we were all pretty bushed after that.

I made us a party banner because I wanted. :) Parties need a banner, right? I used the same papers I used with the invitations, and, of course, the theme came through in the banner. The H at the beginning had monster horns, and the y at the end had dragon wings. I tied the ends up in pretty bows, and it looked like something out of a magazine. It really did. Sorry, but I can't be modest on this one. :) It looked great.
On top of that, I made some cute little party favors for the little kidlets, and I made Joey's shirt. I decorated some chinese takeout boxes, which are, by the way, the best party favor boxes there are. If you want to make a big impact at a party, use chinese takeout boxes. Each kid got a little monster rubber ducky and a monster beach ball. I made Joey's shirt with my cricut and some fabric spray paint. I made stencils for each spray paint color using my cricut. It took a little bit of time because you have to wait for each color to dry before you spray a new one, but it was totally worth it. I will definitely have to try this one again. Simply Spray is the best stuff there is. It dried on the shirt as if it was part of the shirt. It didn't get all rubbery like most screenprinting does. I did totally goof up the first one I tried, though so if you're going to try this yourself, you should buy at least 2 shirts. I ended up buying 3, and now I have an extra shirt to stencil something else. You really can do anything with the cricut. I stenciled "AaarGh!" on the back of the shirt over his butt. I thought it was cute. :)Joey's birthday really was a whirlwind from the very beginning. I had planned on making thank you notes that matched the monster theme, but I just ran out of time and gusto. I had a blast, though, and I would do it all over again. Now I just have to try to top this next year!