Since having a child and becoming a mum I have looked forward to Finn’s birthday parties every year. I love coming up with the themes and planning how it’s going to look in terms of decoration and food. I really should have done event planning as a job because it excites me!
This year my sweet little man was turning the big 4. I was extra excited about his birthday this year because he is at the age now where he understands and enjoys everything that we do for him. I asked him a few months back what he would like to do for his birthday and he said he wanted a Batman birthday. Batman?!? He had never really mentioned Batman before nor had he seen the cartoon. I was so confused! lol. I was sure he was going to change his mind being a 3 year old and the fact that his dislikes and likes changed constantly I wasn’t sure if it would stick so every week I would ask him again, “what do you want to do for your birthday darling?” and the answer remained Batman. Probably about two and a half months before his party, I realised that Batman was going to stay and so I started organising (I am a super organised freak so I always leave myself time).
I started searching Pinterest for ideas for decorations and food and then I thought about the entertainment. I find it hard at little kids birthday parties to keep them entertained as they get bored easily and they love to move around. A bouncy castle had proven extremely popular in previous years so I found an even better one this time with two slides from Jolly Jacks Jumping Castles! It was amazing and the kids were absolutely addicted to it. The company was also great to deal with and well priced.
I also wanted to do something a bit special so I organised for an actor from Dreamscape Entertainment to attend as Batman and preoccupy the kids for an hour of fun. Batman was great and had the kids enthralled for the whole hour as well as the parents. He did a number of games, activities, musical activities, balloon animals and then stayed for the cake and a few photos. I had quite a few parents come up to me afterwards and mention that he was very funny and did a great job at keeping the kids engaged the whole hour. It was well worth the money spent!
Aside from that, I set up a play dough station outside for the kids to play with in-between jumping on the castle and I also filled a plastic sandpit container we had not used yet with plastic balls for the little bubbas to play in!
For food this year I wanted to keep things as simple as possible because I knew that I was going to be 7 months pregnant and pretty tired. I decided to get someone else to do the cake this year and I am so glad I did because it took a lot of the pressure off and it looked amazing. I found someone close by who did such a great job and was really well priced! I need to practice my decorating skills while on maternity leave so I can do cakes like this for the boys next year!
With the pressure of the cake off me, I focused on the rest of the dessert/sweets table. I didn’t want to overdo it as I knew a lot of things didn’t get eaten so I kept it simple with a few key items. I opted for my famous white chocolate rocky road for the adults because it was always a hit at previous events and I loved it as well. It’s also really easy to make!
I then ordered a cookie cutter in the shape of a bat for the Batman cookies from Ebay and made my delicious iced biscuits. They looked super cute and fit so well with the theme and the kids absolutely loved them. They were gone immediately.
I then made a heap of cute little cups filled with yellow jelly to fit in with the colour scheme. Jelly is always a hit at every kids party and sure enough it was well received at Finn’s party too. The kids demolished it before the parents could even get a look in! Perhaps I will have to make more for the parents next time.
The last item I chose was of course cupcakes because they always look cute and taste delicious. I had these absolutely awesome edible images from Red Kitchen Cupcakes that were personalised for the theme of Finn’s birthday and I had to show them off so I opted for a vanilla cupcake with buttercream icing and they were an absolute hit! I was pretty impressed with how quickly everything was eaten from the dessert table and I felt that there was just the right amount of sweets to keep the kids happy without overdoing it. I will definitely keep this in mind for next year.
The decorations are probably the most time consuming part about any party that we do because both Chance and I like to think outside the square and make the house look as cool as possible for the kiddies. I’m glad that Chance gets on board with this because he is very creative and it helps to have his ideas. I found some cool ideas on Pinterest for Batman city cut outs and so we bought a heap of black and yellow card. We cut out the black card to resemble buildings and then cut up the yellow card in to small squares. We stuck the yellow squares on to the buildings to resemble the windows and it looked awesome. Chance then did the light beam in to the sky with the Batman symbol in it and we attached it to the top of the building which gave it even more character.
Chance stuck thicker cardboard to the back of the buildings to make them sturdier and then placed them along the table as a backdrop for the sweets (using sticky tape). He then used a combination of black and yellow crepe paper and twisted it as shown in the photo behind the buildings to highlight the table even further. He attached it from the ceiling to the table with sticky tape.
He had printed off a few different graphics that were Batman related for us to cut out and stick on so I chose a few like the POW! and ZAP! and stuck them to the buildings with skewers holding them up. I didn’t want to totally overdo it with the decorations here so I added a few black paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and left it at that. I was really impressed with how it all came out and it definitely stood out as a Batman party!
He also created these adorable printouts for the water bottles and they worked out so well! It was so much cheaper doing it ourselves and the kids loved having bottles of water to grab when they were thirsty and the personalised sticker made them extra special. We just printed them on normal paper and glued them to the bottles as shown so you could do it for any theme!
For the kids favours this year, I opted for these cute little buckets in the Batman theme and pink ones for the girls and filled them with fun stuff to do. In previous years, I have usually just bought those cheap favour fillers for the kids but they never get used so this year I wanted to make it a bit more fun for them and added some activity books with pencils, stickers, play dough, stamps and of course a few chocolates! They loved them and were so excited to get them when they went home (most of them pulled it apart before leaving) so it was well worth the effort!
In the second lounge, we had the kids table set up with their little chairs and I laid them out with plates and Batman themed cups for each of the kiddies. I used the Batman Happy Birthday banner for this room as well as this was the first room you saw when you walked in to the house and it would be where the parents would be hanging out because the kids would be there too. I also hung a heap of balloons in this room and had a balloon centrepiece for the kids table.
I laid all the adult platters out on our small coffee tables so they didn’t have to move to eat and it worked really well. They looked really pretty too!
I then finished off the decorating with some hanging decorations down the hallway for when guests walked in and they added a nice touch!
Overall, I was really impressed with how good everything looked for Finn’s Batman birthday and his expressions and his little “WOW” when he saw everything for the first time made it well worth the effort we put in. The kiddies were kept well entertained and fed the whole afternoon and I had lots of compliments from the parents which was lovely.
I hope that those planning a Batman birthday party for their little one or even another themed party can find some of our DIY tips useful. Birthday parties can be so expensive when everything adds up so it helps to save on as much as possible where you can and splurge on the big stuff!
Comment below if you have any questions, other ideas to share or if you use any of these for your parties!
Enjoy xoxo
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