Mickey Mouse Birthday party; or a fool-proof toddler party.

      

Lately, I have occasionally felt like my soul is in danger of shriveling up.  The job (the one that pays money, not my mom job which pays in sweet smiles and horrific messes around the toilet but not in it) is kind of kicking my ass and sucking the sparkle out of me.  I mean look at me.  Two days I still can’t think up a clever pun incorporating ‘mouse’  ‘disney’, or ‘fool’ for the title.  Are my crafty powers in danger?  I’m starting to get worried.  That can only mean one thing.  I need to craft, and craft hard. And then blog about it.

But I have no time to craft on that scale at the moment.  I can blog, but I can’t craft right now.  Fortunately, I have a birthday party in my back pocket.  I am so worn out inside I would need to plan a craftastic state dinner to cheer myself up.  So to remind myself of happier crafty times, I’m taking myself back to the happiest place on earth, and the Great Rat himself who presides over it, Mickey Mouse.  At one time Lil’ Bro was all about Mickey Mouse, and so his birthday skewed towards that theme.  We had already tried to go to Disneyland when he was 14 months old.  It was an unmitigated disaster — I swear he set out to ruin that trip.  Screaming, vomiting, crying and keeping everyone awake.  It was horrific.  So this time we decided to save our money, keep it local, and then craft the hell out of it.

Invite:  After my usual over-research of Google, my brain was prepped.  I am not going to show the invite because quite frankly I over designed it.  But I came up with my color palette: black, red, yellow and white.  Oh OK, just you can see it is possible to be over-crafty . . .  It was that stupid MM ribbon that I had left over.  I was determined to use it.  Sometimes frugal just overpowers crafty, so strong is it.  Yeah, that’s it, it was the ribbon’s fault.  Anyway, I’m just prolonging the moment:

Decorations:  In addition to the obligatory and already on-hand black red and yellow streamers leftover from a Cars party, I added a few details:

• Mickey Mouse paper chain:  It all started with the Mickey Mouse paper chain, which was basically a paper chain with little MM ears attached to it. The ears were cut on a piece of construction paper with the top on a fold, and little tabs on the bottom to fold over the width of the paper chain.  So it formed kind of a triangle, much like the Yoda ears and shark fins from previous pirate and Star Wars parties.  This was only for the black rings.  Yeah I got tired of cutting ears and made what I call an artistic decision but it was actually a worn out Mommy decision “Aw hell it’s 11:00 and I’m sick of cutting little tiny circles.  Umm, how about just the black ones?  yeah, that’s the ticket!”

• Mickey Mouse globes:  I used the same premise with the ears, plus the old “sphere made of out strips of paper” to make some Mickey Mouse paper globes.  These I was quite proud  of because I did not see them anywhere on the internet.  They are probably there, but I like to tell myself it was original.   I cut four strips of paper about 1 inch wide, and made two crosses with tape.  I made an asterisk out of them and taped the bottoms of the two crosses together, and did the same with the top.  I then attached ears.  Finally, when I was ready to hang them I used fishing wire, and hung them from the chandelier, entryway lamp, and patio table umbrella.  I made black, red, and yellow globes.  You can see another “executive decision” mouse with red globe and black ears — must have been another long night for Mommy.

Goody bags:  

I was also quite proud of the goody bags I made.  They were inspired, if I do say so myself.  I made a template of a Mickey Mouse hat.  Using an ordinary brown paper bag, I rounded the top to match the template.  I cut a whole hat and ears out of black card stock and glued it to the bag.  With all this (wonderful) crap at the top of the bag, I tried to figure how the little Mouseketeers were going to carry it, because they couldn’t roll it.  So I decided to cut out a handle in the top.  On the front of the bag, I cut out a red rectangle to represent Mickey’s pants, and of course added white buttons.    I also printed out each child’s name in yellow to mimic the embroidery you get on a hat.  Boom — a goody bag.  I still love the hell out of these.

    

Goodies:  Mickey Mouse Rice Krispy treats; DIY Coloring book

• Mickey Treats:  Using a Mickey Mouse cookie cutter, I cut out Mickey Mouse Rice Krispy treats and bagged them in ziploc bags.  I covered the zip part with a folded card stock strip of paper, with some accidental extra prints of the kid’s names left over from the goody bags.  I also included MM bubbles and stickers.

• Mickey Mouse Coloring Books:  The treats, bubbles, and stickers seemed a little skimpy, so I printed out some MM coloring sheets and made little coloring books with construction paper covers.  They looked really plain on the front so using the MM cookie cutter I traced some MMs on black and red polka dot scrapbook paper and pasted them on the front.  I also covered the stapled spine with masking tape, which I kind of liked the look of, almost like a bound book.

    

Games

• Cardboard Blocks:  since Lil’ Bro was 2 at the time, there was no sense in making a big deal about the games — free play was the name of the game.  I knew he liked to play with blocks, so I covered some boxes with brown craft paper and added MM Clubhouse clipart I printed and cut out.    These were just huge boxes the kids could stack and of course knock over.  Why do they do this?  If it keeps them occupied who cares, but it’s so bewildering to painstakingly build something only to destroy it.  Word of caution — when the blocks are knocked over, make sure there’s no one on the other side.  We have a great action shot of Big Bro shoving boxes in his best friend’s face, and she looks most displeased, surprised, and . . . cringe-y.  Anyway, I also laid out some craft paper for them to draw on, and they played at the new water and sand table we got for Lil’ Bro.

        

• Mickey Toss:  The title sounds like we tossed Mickey, but I think that would have traumatized the kids.  “Who’s ready for slingshot Mickey, kids?  Two points if he clears the cedar tree!”  I used the box from the Candy Corn Toss.  I simply added a sheet of brown craft paper to the front with holes cut out in the right places, and drew MM ears to the outside of the holes.  I glued glove, pants, and shoe clip art randomly on the front.  Done.  Lil’ Bro loves this game, even though he stands about 6 inches away from the boxes and places the bean bag in the hole instead of throwing it.

 

Cupcakes

To be honest, I don’t recall what I served to eat.  It was probably hot dogs to go with the “Hot Dog Song” on the MM Clubhouse show.  However, Lil’ Bro is allergic to many things and has never taken to hot dogs.  Or to be truthful, there are a number of things in the gallery of world cuisine that he could eat but won’t.  Yeah he takes “picky toddler” to a new level.  So I could serve anything I wanted, which is probably why I forgot.

However, with the cupcakes I made simple white and chocolate cupcakes and frosted them with white frosting.  Using black candy melts, I put the melted candy in a squeeze bottle, which to be honest didn’t work all that well after the first 30 squirts (there may have been a black candy melt explosion out of the lid of the bottle).  I made MM silhouettes out of black candy melts on waxed paper, then put the paper in the freezer.  I kept the ears in the freezer until the day of the party and then placed them on the cupcakes.  Mickey Mouse cupcakes, done.  If you can draw circles, you can do this.

For a two-year old’s birthday party, this was just about right-size.  Not too much fuss, and just enough details to satisfy a crafting fool like myself.  And just look how cozy this little guy is afterwards with one of his presents: