Monsters Masquerade (2-4yr) Little Monster Creations

We just celebrated our kids birthdays. They turned 2 and 4 -- one on Halloween and the other All Saints Day. We did their birthday party together. I wanted to do the party at our home and wanted a fun, friendly monsters party for toddlers and preschoolers. We chose a Little Monstters party with the Monsters Inc  ideas. 

Invitations - we used the three main colors from the Monster's Inc movie Mike green, Sully blue, and Boo purple (as I called them). I made a tri fold card out of 12x5.5" sully blue paper folded at 4" to make 3 panels. I added purple harlequin diamond paper on one part "A little monster masquesrade." The invitation when opend out had three panels: one with the invite one with the Little Monster Activities and one for the map. We did the party invite in "Monster terms" and called our home the Monster production floor and we were the parental units. We requested the parents bring their little monsters in either costumes or Halloween shirts with the option of costume being available at the party. 

Activities -  Randall's grafitti - chalk on the driveway as guests arrived to the party.   Little Monster Photo Studio - this was the main attraction. It was in our garage. I draped our garage with black fleece (two 3 yard panels and one 4 yard panel in the center). My husband washed the garage out the day before so it would be clean. I put baby blankets on the floor for cushion and put a black flat sheet on top of it next to the drapes. The fleece panels I hung with safety pins through the fabric and cup hooks in the ceiling of the garage. It was great. I hung extra costumes on hangers on the door of the garage (since it was up it made the perfect height for hanging) and had props like buckets and a small ladder to sit on during the photo shoot.

I use a Nikon d80 camera and all the pictures came out great of the kids.   Little Monster Memory creations - inside at our kitchen table with a plush Sully in the center. It was where the Little Mosnters created little 4" scrapbooks out of the same paper as the invitations and added wiggly eyes& ribbon. I made the pages ahead of time (there were 4 pages). I glued paper to chipboard I got from work and punched two holes in each page. All the guests had to do was put the pre-cut ribbon through the holes and add the eyes. They could add pictures of them at home in their costumes or trick or treating.  Monstropolis Play area - Where Little Monsters play - this was our back yard set up with toys.

Celia's Little Monster Music area - musical toddle/preschooler toys Mr Waternoose's Water Table - a water table with toys Monsters Playhouse - a playhouse to crawl in and out of  Little Monster's Art Gallery - I used 6 piece of foam core board from the craft store. I added 4 pieces of 8.5"x11" paper in the three main colors to the board to make it look like a door and then added coloring sheets I printed off the computer of Monsters Inc. I trimmed the coloring sheets with a paper cutter so they would be a little smaller than the colored paper. We set them up against our fence and added a bucket of new crayons and the kids colored on the doors. 

Little Monster's Dessert Café' - Where Little Monsters devour delicious desserts and drink monster juice. I made white cupcakes and frosted them in the three main colors and then added little white eyeballs on top of the cupcakes. We served blue kool-aid in a punch bucket with biohazzard stickers on it (for giggles and grins). We also served snow cones (with an electric snow cone machine) and served boo purple or yellow (from the movie when Sully and Mike get stuck in the cold with the Abominal Smowman and he serves them the yellow snowcone). We had a little picnic table where they all sat.  

Partry favors - there was a box on our front porch that said "Special delivery to the Little Monsters." It also read "to be delivered by October 27 2007." One parent told the kids that Mike & Sully sent a special box. They all came over to help open it and it was full of Take out boxes (like the movie) with party favors. We did little playdough whistles balls ect.  

After the party I touched up all the pictures of the kids and put them on a cd for the parents. I also added a digital scrapbook page for Halloween that read "Boo2u" with a picture of their child on it. It was a jpeg file and could be emailed out to family. I also made some digital storyboards and added them on the cd for the parents. We made little CD cases out of scrapbook paper tied with ribbon on the spine and gave them to all the families that came before Halloween. Since the party we have heard from the parents they emailed the pictures to family for Halloween and printed their pictures out.   We were able to share something I like to do and give it to their friends. This was a great birthday party for our kids."