Cookie Monster Party -2yr- On A Budget

My Daughter LOVES cookies and cookie monster, so for her second birthday we had a cookie monster party! My favorite part about planning a party is making party supplies so we made a lot of stuff and if you start shopping early and I mean EARLY you can save a lot. I plan on the themes a few months before so I can keep an eye out for things we can use for the party. That way you have plenty of time to find stuff you NEED sale or on clearance. The whole party was under $200 including food! 

DECORATIONS:  I crocheted a couple party bunting banners using white and blue (cookie monster blue) yarn and hot glued them to chocolate chip cookie ribbon I found at Joanns craft store for only 99 cents. I hung one over the food table and one over the cookie buffet table.  I made about 15 white tissue paper pompoms half plane white and half white with glitter I got the tissue paper for 90something% off at target in the after Christmas clearance, they rang up under 10 cents a pack! I hung them from the ceiling in the living room.  We found a giant foam cookie monster puzzle at Amazing savings for about 5 bucks and hot glued it together and hung it on the wall over the coloring table.  The rest of the decorating was blue and white streamers and balloons from the dollar store. Instead of spending money on helium filled we blow them up ourselves and taped them to the walls. 

FOOD/CAKE:  I made one of those giant chocolate chip cookie cookie cakes, you know the ones that go for $19.99! Since the party was only a couple weeks after Christmas I still had a lot of baking supplies and made my own homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and cooked it in a round disposable cookie sheet from the dollar store then used some blue food color to color some white icing to decorate the cake plus over the summer I found NIB cookie monster cake topper for 50 cents! ;]  To go with the cookie cake we made mini cookie monster cupcakes. I used white icing on top and dipped them in blue sugar. For the eyes I used a sandwitch bag with a small hole filled with white icing and made the white of the eyes then I melted some chocolate chips and used a tooth pick to make little dots in the eyes. For the mouth I used the little chocolate chip cookie cereals and pushed one tiny cookie into each one half way to look like cookie monster was eating the cookie!   For the food we made two big pots of ziti with sauce and ricotta and mazzarella cheese. CHEAP and EASY! =]  COOKIE BUFFET: I got EVERYTHING for the buffet at the dollar store. I got some clear plastic party trays and bowls and plates and a couple scoops and cake servers. I filled everything with all different kinds of cookies, in the bowls I put small cookies like golden bears and the cereal and bigger cookies on the trays. At the front of the buffet we had chocolate and strawberry milk boxes, they looked just like juice boxes, that we got at the dollar store,  2 for 79 cents, along with small cake plates and napkins.  TABLEWARE: To save money on plates and everything we decided to buy plane blue plates, cups and napkins. 99 cents a pack compared to $3.99 a pack for the sesame street ones that didn't even have cookie monster on the plates we saw! To dress up the cups we cut out cookie monster eyes and mouths out of white and black paper and glued them to the cups. It took a while but was worth it! 

PINATA:  My husband and I did this one together, we made a chocolate chip cookie pinata.  Using boxes from Christmas gifts, he cut out two big circles and a long piece about 4 inches wide and long enough to fit around the circles to hold them together. At the bottom we left a few inches unglued to leave an opening to fit the candy. I used light brown paper and lined it up with the pinata and worked my way down cutting strips about 3 inches high. Then I cut a fringe on the bottom of each strip of paper leaving about a 1/2 inch uncut and glued them, working my way up, on to the pinata doing the front and back then along the outside. Once all the paper was glued I took darker brown paper and cut out chocolate chips and glued them to the cookie. On the bottom, where we left the flap for filling, I taped 6 pieces of yarn, one for each kid to the inside of the flap and then glued and taped the 7th piece of yarn on really good so it would open when that string gets pulled. At the bottom of the strings I glued little cookie monster pictures I cut out of a book I found at the dollar store, I think I used 3 books. They filled blue sandwich bags, again we cut cookie monsters eyes and mouth out with white and black paper and glued them to all the bags for the kids to fill with the pinata candy.

GAMES/ACTIVITIES:  PIN THE TAIL: I used poster board and painted it blue and cut out cookie monsters face then cut out eyes and his mouth and glued them onto his face Then I cut out 7 brown cookies and used a marker to color the chocolate chips. It was like a pin the tail game only they had to pin the cookie in monsters mouth! =] All I did was loop a few pieces of tape to the back of each cookie so they would stick.  PASS THE COOKIE: My kids had a big stuffed chocolate chip cookie so we used that to play Pass the cookie" all the kids sat in a circle and passed the cookie around till the music stopped last kid left won! You could do this with any theme with a toy that matches!  COLORING: We set up their little kid table with crayons and cookie monster coloring book pages we ripped out of their winter holiday sesame street coloring books they had. 

FAVORS: Everything i got for the favors came from.... you guessed it! The dollar store! I used brown paper gift bags then I cut out more dark brown paper chocolate chips and glued them to the bags. Each bag got one chocolate milk box one mini cupcake in a small blue baby food storage container a pack of cookies a cookie monster preschool learning books and cookie monster hand soap in a pump bottle.  The party was a big hit and everyone had a awesome time!"