Super Duper Hero (3-5yr) Hulk Smash

INVITATIONS: Simple invitations were sent out for this party. Super Hero Bubble words were uploaded for graphics on the invitation. Wording:Put on your secret super hero disguise and join us to celebrate our sons' birthdays. We will have games and prizes for the pint sized heroes and food and drinks for our super sized heroes. Accepted invites Hero up, Maybe-Might Escape, and Declined invites Busy Fighting Crime. 

DECORATIONS: After a little research through various websites I found some cool decoration ideas, including buildings and city skylines.  There were a lot of things I wanted to do but due to budget and time restraints I kept is very simple but festive. Luckily, I love clearance shopping, it is somewhat of a game to me, and the Dollar Tree is my favorite place too.  We used their front formal area for the official party area for the kids to hang out and play.  We placed the food and drink in the kitchen and breakfast nook in the back of the house.

So I will start with the front.  We cleared out most of the room with exception of a very large 5’ X 6’ shelving unit and a small cabinet that were too heavy to move. We camouflaged the large shelves we placed a twin size black sheet over it to make it a black night sky backdrop.  In front of the shelf I placed 5 to 6 ‘buildings’. The buildings were various size boxes with building type shapes that I wrapped with black, blue, red, and green wrapping paper. I cut up sheets of construction paper in blue, yellow, green, red, and yellow in to 1 x 1.5 inch pieces for the windows. The windows were not all ‘lit up’ and strategically glued to the front of the boxes to appear like not everyone was home. I laid Captain America shield, helmet, and blaster on top of the red and blue building for one of the games later.  I placed the black w/ yellow windows at the other end.  I took yellow tissue paper and folded like a cone to pin to the black sheet/night sky back drop with the Batman symbol to make it look like the Bat Symbol was on dispay.

On top of the shelf were the bad guys, which were Coffee Mate creamer bottles I normally use for bowling pins. I put a black mask on the caps with eye holes cut out to make them look like bad guys  I made one very large building that was wrapped in gold wrapping paper and red windows.Then across the top I placed die cut letters ‘STARK’ across the top This was placed strategically in front of the cabinet we could not move along the same wall. On the other side of the shelf, we used the kids lego table to place the prizes for the games(see below for details) on it.  One and only rather large window in the room was covered with a store bought Avengers Happy Birthday mural.  In front of that I placed more buildings in front of it for a scene for the kids to take pictures with the heros. On one of the boxes in this skyline we laid Thor’s helmet and hammer for a game later in the party. One more piece of décor could not be moved due to its weight was next to the window so I placed ‘UP UP AND AWAY’ with blue and light blue star die cut letters to be part of the scene too. In the center of the room we placed 2 kid’s red/blue/gray plastic picnic tables and one red round plastic table w/ blue chairs for the kids to eat. I laid coloring pages from Batman and Spiderman coloring/activity books on them.  I found 3 pk Spiderman crayons during Halloween for 70% off to use with the coloring/activity pages and for the kids to take home too. 

In another corner was the Hulk Smash punchbox game with a couple of buildings on either side of it.  I purchased IronMan and Hulk masks/costumes set not only as gifts to the boys, but decorations during the party.  I took the hulk body costume and stuffed with rolled up towels in the arms and legs then a throw pillow in the body. I used a green bucket to place on top of the body and put the plastic mask on it for the ‘head’.  I used the hulk hands on the end of the arms.Once Hulk was made I put him ontop of the building next to the punchbox game. On various buildings I cut out bubbles and glued precut letters spelling out, ‘POW’, ‘SMASH’, and ‘BAM’ on them. In addition to using the Hulk costume or decorations, an Avenger pop up tent and tunnel was also used on the opposite side of the room that would be used for a party activity too. 

Then the Iron Man costume was used on the gift table in an alcove.  The light shown through the mask to make it look like it was lit up.  We blew up primary colored punch balloons and placed around the room for the kids to play with later.  In the back of house, was the Hydration Station with a few drinks options and bright blue ice bucket.  We laid down a red plastic cover with a dark blue runner made from leftover wrapping paper from the buildings. We used black poster board to make a city skyline to place on the backsplash.  On the skyline, I placed blue foam star with silver die cut stars and balloon words similar to what was put on the buildings.  Kids drink: Hulk Juice, lemonade with green food coloring served in drink dispenser and purple cups. Adults drink: Spidey Sangria served in punch bowl with fresh fruits.

Last but not least, Prof Q Cumber H2O which was plain water with cucumber slices and rind served in a drink dispenser that was decorated like a super hero.  A foam mask was placed on the top.  We used a yellow foam star with a pre cut Q on the front of the dispenser We made a cape  by cutting a piece of red plastic table skirt and tied it with blue satin ribbon. Food and Tablescaping was in the breakfast nook. They had a bay window/seat that I placed a city skyline made from a large packing box, wrapping paper, and yellow construction paper. You cut one of the seams of the box to flatten it out. Lay, cut and tape black wrapping paper to the front. Yellow construction paper was cut to size to make windows for the various buildings in the skyline. I did find 3D generic super hero party set on clearance at Walmart that was used through out the party. It had black background with colorful word bubbles(pow kapow, bam, splat, etc), super hero gloved hands, and lightning bolts.

I came with premade 3D mask glasses so you can view the graphics in 3D and a birthday banner. We hung the banner directly over the city skyline. We embellished it with Blue and yellow foam stars with the birthday boys initials and their birthday ages on it. I hung 2 foam super hero masks from the buildings.  Iron Man toy was placed in front of it.  There was a small upright deep freezer in the nook we needed to disguise so we used another black sheet and wrapped it up to make it into a building with some yellow ‘windows’ from construction paper.  In front of the window and deep freeze was the table that we used 2 3-D table plastic covers and 1 yellow round plastic cover folded in half to cover it. We draped one of each of the 3-D covers on the left and right side then used the yellow round on the top to look like a cape laid out on it.  We used various toy super heros the boys had already on the table One small green building was placed to the left with Superman and another foam superhero mask.  , was made and had a cut out placed on top of it. 

PARTY SNACKS/FOOD: Word bubbles were made for food labels for each dish; Hulk’s Ham, Wolverine’s Slaw, Peter Parker’s Potato Salad, Flash’s Fried Rice, Kato’s Egg rolls, Black Widow’s Kiss, and Human Torch’s Hummus. Black Widow’s kiss were Snyder’s Pretzel Snaps, Hersey Kisses, and red M&M’s. The kisses are placed on the snaps and put in the oven log enough to soften then you press the m&m in the center of it.  The parents and maternal grandmother made all the food from scratch and fresh except the ham. Various brightly colored dishes to serve the food. Gold, red and Yellow plastic untensils (iron man colors) were placed in paper buckets, blue with colored stars along with the 3D blow outs for the kids to have.

CAKE: In the center of the table was the birthday cakes, placed on wrapped boxes for the cake stands.  Cake one for the little bday boy turning 3 was chocolate on a green wrapped box with lightning bolts and blue ribbon.  The cake had a cut out from hanging decorations sticking out the top. Cake two for the older bday boy turning 5 was also chocolate placed on a box wrapped in birthday wrapping paper and yellow/red ribbon around it.  Another cut out from hanging decorations was put on top of it with the numerical candles on each cake.

COSTUMES: Kids and adults came in various hero garb. We had capes, full super hero costumes, and graphic tees.  I don’t know about you but I love when people participate. 

ACTIVITIES/GAMES: Along with the coloring/activity pages mentioned above, we had 4 games/activities for the kids to play and complete for goodies. First: Super Hero powers: The kids crawled through the tent/tunnel then jumped over ‘tall’ buildings.  Each kids received a 3-D goodie bag with stickers and 3d mask glasses. Thor’s Mighty Hammer: I wrapped 3 oz water cups with primary colored construction paper so the kids could smash them with the hammer. Each kid received a deflated punch balloon to take home. Captain America’s Shooting practice. The ‘bad guys’ made from creamer bottles were put on the top of buildings and the kids had 6 shots to knock down as many has they could. Each kid received a Spiderman egg filled with Avengers crunchy candy. The kid with the most bad guys knocked down got to choose from the prize table. 

Hulks Smash punch box: this is my safer version of the piñata. I found the perfect box that is 4’ X 3’ x 1’. I cut out 16 circles in a grid. Inside the box, I glued soup to go containers to each circle.  I put various Avengers, Marvel, Justice League and hero candies packages found during Halloween and Dollar Tree inside the containers through the cut outs. In 4 random cubbies, I placed an Avengers eraser. After that, I wrapped the box in green, cut out word bubbles from yellow tissue paper.  Prior to gluing the tissue paper, I sliced an X in the wrapping paper in front of each circle for easy punching. I glued the word bubbles in front of each opening X. Then took purple pre cut letters and made words like POW, BOOM, KAPOW, SMASH, etc. The kids selected random word bubble to punch through to get their goodies and if they found an eraser got to choose a prize from the table.

PRIZES/FAVORS: "Thanks For Trying" prizes were mentioned above, but the big prizes they could win were various Avengers, and Marvel paraphernalia such as; gel pens, activity play pack, journal, and stickers. They were placed in a treat box that was black with primary colored stars and finished with tissue paper.  I also had 3 Batman tin pails that I put yellow tissue paper and various Batman items such as coloring book, markers, stickers, and erasers. Most of the prizes/goodies were found for 70% to 90% during the holiday clearances at Target. At the end of the night, I passed out super hero toothbrushes to wash away all the sugar goodies that were given out during the party.