How To--Super Hero Birthday Party

I had lots of people asking me questions about the party, so I thought I'd post tutorials of the stuff we did for the party, mostly so I have it all in one place.

The Cakes:

The Spiderman Cake was a Wilton Shaped Cake pan decorated with a star-tipped frosting tip. This is how my mom made our birthday cakes. They take a lot of work but they look so awesome. For black frosting, store bought is the only way to get a true black with frosting that is still edible (If anyone has a recipe that works, I would love it). I tried to do my own black frosting with black wilton dye and it was inedible from all the food dye, and still only purplish-gray, so save yourself the wasted frosting and dye and just get store bought black. For all other colors, homemade buttercream frosting is the best. It holds shape good and tastes amazing. I do mine with a hint of almond instead of vanilla because I LOVE almond extract. Here's the recipe I use:

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (NOT melted)

1 teaspoon almond extract (use 1 t. vanilla instead for a more traditional frosting that is still amazing)

4 cups (1 lb) powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

Combine butter and shortening with an electric mixer. Add almond extract. Gradually add sugar, beating on medium speed. Add milk and beat until light and fluffy. Refrigerate until you are ready to pipe it onto the cake, so the frosting doesn't get too runny.

The hulk cupcakes--I made chocolate cupcakes (from a box) with cream cheese filling. The filling didn't work out very well, so I won't bother sharing the recipe. Next time I would use piped in filling or just buy a box of Betty Crocker Fun Da-Middles. I used store bought frosting for these. Cream cheese frosting dyed green and chocolate frosting. I bought Wilton Candy Eyes to save some time.

Game #1: Pin the Arc Reactor on the Iron Man

This was just a silly take on Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I drew the Iron Man on red butcher paper and used some gold paint for the highlights. Then I cut out little blue "arc reactors" and wrote each of the kids' names on them. Then we blinded folded them and spun them around once. It was fun. A few of the girls were nervous about the blind fold and the spinning, so I let them skip all that and just close their eyes, which worked out fine.

 Game #2: Super Hero Battle

This was a variation on a cake walk. There were super heroes taped to the floor. The kids walked in a circle while we played theme songs from super hero cartoons. When the music stopped, all the kids stood on a super hero for the "battle". I would pick super hero pictures one at a time, and when your super hero was picked, you were out and had to sit down. The last hero standing got to pick a prize and then we went again. After 1 or 2 rounds, the kids were getting restless so we switched to a more traditional cake walk, just picking a super hero card, and that person could pick a prize.

The prizes for the games. I had enough for each kid to pick one. All the super hero stuff came from Target $1 bins. I got a few generic/girly toys for the girls that didn't like super heroes.

Game #3: Super Villain Capture
This was a relay race. The tents were filled with balloons that each had a super villain taped to it. Each kid would put on a cape, crawl through the tunnel, capture a villain, bring him back out, and put him in the Super Villain Prison (made out of our laundry hampers). Then they would take off the cape and hand it to the next person. If you don't have tents, you could just do some other kind of obstacle course and have the balloons in a box at the end of the course.

The prison. I planned to decorate it with paper "prison bars", but ran out of time.

 At this point, each kid got a goodie bag as a reward for capturing all the super villains. That way they had a bag to gather candy from the pinata.

The Pinata

It was pretty simple to make, although a little time consuming.

1. Inflate a balloon. Cut newspaper into 1 inch wide strips.

2. To make the paste, mix 1 cup flour with 2 cups water in a pot/pan. Cook and stir until paste begins to thicken. Add a pinch of salt and continue stirring until it has a putty-like texture. Remove from heat and transfer to a shallow dish to let it cool.

3. Dip the newspaper strips in the paste and use yours fingers to scrape off any excess paste. Then lay them over the balloon until its completely covered, leaving a small opening at the top, about 2 inches by 2 inches, to insert the candy.

4. Repeat step 3 to do 3-4 coats, but you need to let it dry between each coat, which can take 6-12 hours, so plan on doing this over a few days.

5. Poke two holes in the top to run a string through. I used a plastic lid from a gallon ice cream tub with two holes poked in it to reinforce the string inside the pinata. Then tie the string to the end of a broom handle.

Here's a link to more detailed instructions:

Painting the pinata

Super Hero Coloring Pages

while the kids were arriving

Prizes and goody bags. Between the Target dollar bins and Amazon, we got everything really cheap. The homemade pinata saved a ton of money too, and actually seemed to break better than the store bought pinatas anyway. When I did an online search for a hulk pinata, they were about $60 - $80 for a real pinatas (not the pull-sting kind, which seem lame to me). I couldn't believe how expensive they were. Maybe I should open an etsy shop and sell Hulk/Iron Man/Spiderman pinatas. I feel like I've gotten pretty good at creating those 3 charactesr :)

 Amazon had really awesome, really cheap party favors. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can just search for "super hero party" or "priness party" or whatever theme you want, and tons of great stuff pops up for $2-$5 with free 2-day shipping. I love Amazon.