Going Bananas!

What's a party without decorations and cake??  So, here's the rest of the monkey party I put together....
We had the party at a local park district building.  To jazz up the walls, I bought some palm tree decorations and some monkeys that were meant for a classroom bulletin board ( both found at Oriental Trading).

On the tables, I used white tablecloths and added runners that I cut out of some adorable monkey fabric that I found online.  I also had these monkey & palm tree centerpieces I also bought from Oriental Trading and added some baskets with raffia and bananas as centerpieces as well!

As added fun, I ordered a 5 foot inflatable monkey from Oriental Trading as well.  He was propped in the corner and the kids had a lot of fun with him.  He made for good photo ops too! 

Instead of one birthday cake, I decided cupcakes were easier.......no cutting, no forks, etc.  I made 9 dozen monkey cupcakes that turned out like this:

I made yellow, chocolate and of course banana cake, all frosted with chocolate frosting.  I frosted the top third of a Nilla Wafer for the monkey face and added the eyes, the nose and the smile with gel icing.  The ears are mini Nilla Wafers tucked under the face. 

For favors, I made monkey treat cups for the kids.  They were filled with monkey necklaces, banana candies and monkey tattoos.  I used brown paper cups and punched holes for the handles and tail, made out of brown pipe cleaners.  The face was part of a monkey door hanging craft kit I found at Oriental Trading and I just used the bits and pieces I needed to make the cups.

There were also chocolate monkey lollipops for the guests to take home.  It was so easy to mold the chocolate pops and tie them in a treat bag!  For display, I put floral styrofoam in a basket covered with raffia and stuck the monkey pops in so they were standing up and everyone could just grab one on their way out.





Monkeying Around: Monkey theme party ideas

Not so secret confession:  I love planning parties.  It's the nerd in me that loves the organization, attention to detail and advance planning it takes.  I also love to use my creative crafty side that sometimes gets stifled in the mundaneness of daily life.  That being said, my son turned one earlier this month and of course I wanted his party to be spectacular so I got to work early (very early).  Task #1, choosing the theme.  Relatively easy since my husband likes monkeys (that could be another post in itself) and my son is a bit of a monkey himself.  So done, monkey theme it is!  On to invitations.  I wanted to make the invitations myself so I searched around for supplies and played around with some ideas until I came up with this: 

It's just yellow and green card stock with the white information paper attached.  The monkey is a 3D sticker which I stuck on top of a foam leaf.  I then glued them both on top of some raffia pieces I attached to the card stock.  I used rubber cement to adhere the raffia and to attach the paper and card stock together, it worked really well.  The monkey stickers had four designs, some were much happier than this sour looking one!
I bought some chocolate brown envelopes for them and ordered these cute monkey return address labels from vistaprint.com:  


A little blurry, but it says "Going Bananas for Jake's Birthday!"



A simple home made invitation that sets the stage for a great party! 
And of course proper etiquette dictates we must send thank you cards!  So I saved money by making those too. 

I simply found a picture of a bunch of bananas online and traced it onto yellow card stock.  I added the details and the text with a brown Sharpie and wrote the note on the back!
Voila! 
I will post more details about the monkey party soon!

Go Team Blog!

We are 4 great friends.  We've known each other for over half our lives.  We've gone to school together, traveled together, laughed and cried together.  We've lived life with all it's ups and downs and no matter what's happened to take us in different directions or put miles between us, here we are.  Still great friends.  So, why not a new adventure?  Why not try blogging together and see what happens?  Admittedly, we're not sure what these posts are going to bring or if anyone will even read them, but at the very least it will be another chapter in our story.  So, here's to our team blogging!  Ready, Set, Go!