Spiderman Birthday Party | A Life of Pinterest

What?

I know, random. But here’s the thing…all of the gaudy branding and marketing of superheros, kind of makes me ill. I think it is the fact that they seem so dark, they just do not give me warm and fuzzies and I don’t really want my kids falling for mainstream marking.

I try my damnedest to keep it out of the house, there is no mention of superheros, I have never brought them up. Ok, so I may have purchased matching Superman t-shirts that were on sale at Old Navy…but that is IT! Because it’s Superman. Ok, so maybe I am a bit hypocritical…whatever.

I may have bought them matching t shirts…but you will never catch them wearing them at the same time

So, as I booked Grant’s 4th birthday party at the community rec center pool, they asked me “what theme would you like? Dinosaurs, Spiderma….”

They didn’t even get the full word out before Grant started getting all jazzed up.

“Spiderman! I want Spiderman! PLEASE!”

I say “no” to a lot of things when asked by this kid, but how can you turn down a birthday request?

“And how do you know what Spiderman is?!!?!?!?!” I asked.

Pre K….his friends….he learns this stuff when he is OUT OF MY SIGHT! (Good thing we pulled him from school until the fall.)

That being said, I didn’t even hesitate to agree to a Spiderman party (although, inwardly slowly dying.)

So I did what I do best and took to Pinterest to find out what other crafty mom’s have done for their son’s Spiderman party.

You can find my Spiderman board right here: “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility”

spiderman splash art Source: Kapcer Kiec via Geektyrant

First up: invites!

I searched high and low, Etsy, Google, Pinterst. I wanted something homemade, simple, and inexpensive and so after not finding what I wanted, I decided to take my newly taught Adobe Illustrator skills and create something myself. It is pretty rudimentary, but it worked for me. And 15 invites only cost me $1.95 (I explain how down below.)

Spiderman image illegally lifted online…..yes

I decided to go with the older, more Marvel Comic-y font, you can find it here (from DaFont.com)

To print them out, I saved them as a jpeg, uploaded it to Costco Photo Center and printed off as many as I needed for only $0.13 a piece (in matte finish so it wouldn’t look too photo-y)

Decor was my next focus. Luckily we were having this at an off-site location so I didn’t feel I need to do a lot of decorating. I made a banner, hung some balloons, used the goodie bags to liven things up a bit.

After 4 birthday parties (3 for Grant and 1 for Brody) you kind of learn to keep it simple and easy…ish.

the one I took at the party is awful, but you get the idea…..

I used my Cricut, here are the cartridges and sizes that I used.

Background: ‘George and Basic Shapes’, 4 inch octogon and ‘Pumpkin Carving’, 3 1/2 inch spiderwebs

Letters: ‘Designer’s Calendar’ Script Shadow, white; Script, blue

I attached the letters with a little foam craft tape so it would stick out slightly from the background to give it a little depth….Matt’s idea.

My intention was to actually purchase some spiderman mylar balloons from the Dollar Store, but mine was very low on inventory. LUCKILY they did have generic mylar star balloons. I bought red, black, blue and yellow/gold… Spiderman colors. Worked perfectly.

Then I moved on to Goodie Bags. Again, I was going for “least market-y” as possible so forget the crap they sell on Amazon. I was inspired by this:

I bought red bags at Hobby Lobby, 3 for $1 (which is the best deal I found anywhere.)

I did some work in Illustrator and came up with the eyes, cut them out and glued them on.

again, another really shitty picture from the party, I must have been preoccupied or something….

I filled them with:

$1 store Spiderman tatoos

And from Amazon:

Spiderman Silly Bands
rubber spiders
Some of the more girlier girls got these Spiderman cupcake rings in leui of the rubber spiders (they also served their intended purpose and were the decor for the Gluten Free Chocolate cupcakes I made and for the gluten filled cake they provided.)
Sticky Spiderwebs
and LED finger lights (there were some younger kids there that I didn’t give sticky spiderwebs too, so I made sure to have something cool for them..and as always, these were a hit.)

I kind of get carried away with the goodie bags, I always do.

Although, turns out the balloons were the biggest hit. As always. Why do we even make the effort? It’s like the box that’s cooler than the toy. Whatever, it made me happy.

Please ignore the purple balloon back there. Apparently the Rec Center didn’t have the same “vision” I did and muddled up my color scheme with purple…how dare they.