Birthday Party "Things"

Jayce has been asking me how many months until his birthday  and birthday party ever since we moved to London.  Along with has been an insistence that he have a Superhero party.  

When I started looking into different options, even briefly contemplating having it at our flat, Chris and I quickly decided to have it at this incredible indoor play area near our flat.  In addition to being an indoor play area, it was also one of those, "we do everything" places.  They provide the venue and entertainment, the food and drinks, they do the setting up, the cleaning up, and even the invitations.  The control freak in me didn't like to relinquish this much control, but it was exactly what we needed.  However, I did have to figure out how to make this party a "Superhero Party," because Jayce had been asking for that constantly.  It was very important to him so it was important to me.  

The other side of this is, I didn't really want to spend any more money than we already had.  We were paying per child for the venue and food, and though we could afford it and it was worth it, I didn't want to spend any more.  So I posed myself the challenge to come up with a few ways to infuse "Superhero" into the party without spending any more cash/spending as little as possible.  Here's how I did it and a bit of what Mom and Chelsea helped me assemble while they were in town. Caped and masked suckers were one of the party favors and sat in the middle of the tables.  

I used card stock that I had on hand for the capes and masks, found the little superhero symbols on some free Valentine printables online, printed those, cut them out, and attached them to the backs of the capes.  (There were more suckers for the party, this is just a few of them.)  I wrapped up old shoe boxes, punched holes in the top to hold the suckers, and decorated them in Superhero gear.
I found a font on DaFonts.com that types Superhero symbols instead of letters.  (What?!  It was awesome.)  So I enlarged and printed the symbols for Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman, cut them out in felt (on hand), glued them together, and attached large safety pins to the back.  This way any children that arrived not in costume could still be a Superhero, and they could take their badges home so that they could be Superheros at any time. :)  I made sure to have a selection of girl and boy Superhero badges to choose from.We also cut out felt masks and I sewed thin strips of elastic to the back of each one.
I wasn't really sure how we were going to hand these out to the kids.  They were all arriving at different times and running straight in to play, and I thought there was a good chance that they would lose them in the play area.

 I decided to wait until after dinner when the cake and ice cream was being served, spread them all out on a tray, and went around the table to give them to the kids.  Jayce was so excited to give masks to his friends!  He started walking with me to hand one out to each of his friends, but they ended up running over and crowding around to choose their favorites.  
Then, to my surprise (and delight) they put them on and kept them on while they ate, while they had dessert, while they sang to Jayce, and for the rest of the party.After the cake and singing we gave the kids their badges in a similar manner.  Most of the kids wanted theirs put on right away, even if they were already wearing Superhero costumes.  It was so cute.But most of all, my little Superhero was happy with it all, despite how he looks in this picture.AND as to my own personal goal, I only spent and additional 5 pounds for all of the kids' goodies: 3 for the suckers, and 2 for the safety pins to hold their badges on.  I think it was money very well spent. :)

A post about the party itself is still coming, but I had to break it up a bit for the sake of photo and story overload. :)