Despicable 2!

To say that I am excited about Cody's birthday party is an understatement. I have literally been working on it since shortly after his 1st birthday. But on the other hand, I can't believe my baby is 2 :( No more babies for me. Cody thinks he is a big boy and pretty much refuses to sit in his high chair. This is just one example of his stubborn nature which I'm sure he gets from his father.

A few months ago, I discovered Pinterest which would turn out to be quite helpful when searching for inspiration for a Despicable Me birthday party. I think what we ended up with was something pretty fantastic if I do say so myself.

So here's the invite which I made. Luckily, they are making a sequel to Despicable Me, so I was able to find this picture of a minion holding up two fingers, or whatever you call the digits of a minion. I copied the images I found into a Microsoft Publisher blank document, and measured the envelopes I had to make sure the invitations would be the right size. I printed the invite on white cardstock but thought they needed a pop of color so the whole thing went on a piece of blue cardstock and I used a scrapbook tool to round the edges.

One example of an idea I borrowed from a fellow pinner, were these minion cupcakes made with twinkies.

Here's how mine turned out:

When I was scanning my memory for food ideas (that weren't sweets) I remembered the line about stuffed crust pizza! Alas, there were ideas on pinterst for stuffed crust pizza bites, perfect for little ones and grown ups alike! Pretty yummy if I do say so myself! I assembled the morning of the party, but kept them covered in the fridge and didn't put them in the oven until just before guests started arriving. I opted not to serve with a side of dipping sauce (marinara or ranch) because, well, I like my carpet.

Something I came up with myself, were "Dr. Nefario's anti-gravity orbs", AKA bouncy balls. These were an after-summer clearance steal at CVS :) So glad I got them! I didn't get a picture but it was my attempt to tie in the plot of the movie to capture the moon. The kids used them to "bowl" in the kitchen. Check out these minion bowling pins. They were totally on the to-do list, but we don't drink soda and I didn't want to just buy the liters to dump them out so we just used small plastic bowling pins from Walmart.

Box of shame photo-op:

I used a large cardboard box from my office, turned it inside out by cutting at the seams so that the solid brown would be on the outside, and re-taped the box. Husband cut a hole with a box cutter and wrote Box of Shame in Sharpie.

I found some cute orange water guns at Party City that reminded me of Vector and his squid launcher. In the background you'll notice the red dog bowl; another Dollar Tree find filled with candy to replicate the scene when Gru first adopts the girls and has no idea what to feed them.

Many of our family and friends hadn't seen Despicable Me so I used pictures to attempt to tie-in all of my kitschy details. I love these double-sided white frames from Ikea, $.99! I just googled scenes from the movie and then copied the pictures into a Word document. The font used for the movie propaganda is called "Las Vegas" so I was able to download and use that on the invitations as well.

Goodie-Bag breakdown:

I bought sets of blue canvas bags by Darice from the Target Dollar spot. At 3-for a dollar, I knew I could find something to use them for. I kept looking at the handles and thinking they looked like the minion overalls, but I ended up just using them to hold a few goodies. You can see them in the background of the picture below, stuffed with yellow tissue paper.

Another find, months later, in the Target Dollar Spot were these scientific-looking measuring cups. I had seen where other Despicable Me parties let the children drink out of beakers, etc. but we have a toddler and light-colored carpeting, so no fun blue punch in beakers for us.

I served organic cheese puffs to tie in the scene where Agnes says: "Awe, my caterpillar never turned into a butterfly." Edith: "That's a cheeto."

Since Despicable Me party-gear is no where in stores, I ordered stickers on ebay and included those in the goodie bags. Many of our family and friends had not seen the movie, but my hope was that after Cody's birthday party, they'd want to rent it and see why we love it.

I think my birthday boy enjoyed his day!

"Happy Birthday" to Cody Wyatt!