Super Hero Party

When we asked our son what sort of party he might want for his 5th birthday, he immediately responded with "A SUPER HERO PARTY"! He went on to explain that he knew he wanted a boy hero party this since we threw his sister a Super Girl Party last year...sweet right? What took longer, a great deal longer, was for him to decide that he wanted to be Iron Man at his party but once that was decided, the rest was fun party prep for me!

---

I started with the masks...

I will be honest and say that I just winged this. I took plain card stock and free hand sketched a simple mask. I over estimated the face size and underestimated the eyes and nose, folded it in half when cutting it out to ensure it would be even. Then I placed it on my daughters face to know where to adjust. 

Once I had her mask right, it served as my template for all the others. I reduced it by about 20% for baby/toddlers and added 20% for the bigger kids. Traced them all onto felt or foam and voila...masks!

Next was the piñata...

I have a renewed love of paper mache and piñata making! I didn't want to make a "Good Guy" piñata (something about bashing up a good guy just doesn't feel right) so the joker was the easiest and creepiest way to go. Balloons, flour, water, old cardboard, old newspaper, hot glue gun, acrylic paint, rope and tissue paper. That, plus time and candy, is all you need to make this piñata and as you can see from the pictures below....it really is not that complicated. 

Iron Man mask...

My  favourite project was his iron man mask! Yes, I could have just purchase an Iron Man masks from Walmart for $10 but I really (really) just wanted to see if I could make this...I have issues, I know. Moving on. I used a tutorial I found here to make this mask. I simplified it quite a bit for our purposes but I did it! I have never been good with spray paint, so I found that the most difficult part, the rest just took patience. Now this was a lot more work than it's worth but I think the fact that most people didn't realize it was home made at first was a personal crafty achievement for me. More importantly, my son was so interested in the process of it being created, my test fitting it on him, watching me spray paint it a few times (I hate spray paint), he thought it was amazing that I was making this just for him. That is what made it worth while. 

The finishing touches...

The rest was custom shirts, matching loot bags, and the finishing touches. I covered the house in my personal collection of comic book art and posters. I usually have these limited to our room and my studio, so it was fun seeing it everywhere. The piñata was of course lots of fun but it was the water ballon game that was the big hit.  I printed a few pictures of bad guys I found here, put them in page protectors sealed with tape and hot glued them to an old piece of plywood we had. My husband spent a week filling water balloons in his spare time and I think he cried a little when he saw how quickly they went through the over 300 water balloons. It was well worth it though, our son is still talking about fun that was. 

Happy Birthday Little Guy

The party day was a blast, everyone loved their shirts, masks, loots and of course the water balloon madness. What really warmed my heart was seeing my son really soak up every bit of it, in awe of every present, in awe of his cake, his piñata and most of all, enjoying having everyone there just for him. He really is a sweet little guy and it is a strange thing knowing that he is already 5 years old. 

Happy Birthday sweet heart...I mean Iron Man.