Planning Parties Keeps Me Sane-ish
Ever since I can remember I’ve loved planning parties. After having kids, planning their birthday parties has been a great outlet for my creativity and it helps to keep me sane…ish.
This year my daughter chose her birthday party theme – Monica And Friends – which is the most popular comic book series and media franchise in Brazil. I loved Monica And Friends growing up and I’m so happy that my children share the same love for the series. I was excited to plan her party, however I knew it would be hard to find party decorations since the series is not known in the U.S.
The 35 Year Old Dolls That Started It All
I don’t remember exactly what age I was when I got two of my favorite dolls: Monica and Jimmy Five (“Cebolinha” in Portuguese). I am pretty sure they are about 35 years old. I have my sister to thank for bringing me the two dolls, which are about 9 inches tall and pretty heavy, in her carry-on all the way from Brazil earlier this year. I have so many good memories of playing with them for years, then my brother and sister got to enjoy them and now they have been passed on to my kids.
Those Who Can’t Buy, DIY.
Monica And Friends has been incredibly popular in Brazil for over 50 years. It has been translated to 14 languages and distributed in 40 countries. Unfortunately for me, the U.S. is not one of the countries in which the franchise is distributed, thus making it virtually unknown here. That meant I wouldn’t be able to find any Monica-themed party decor to buy here in the U.S. So if I wanted to plan a party that turned out even half as cute as the amazing Monica And Friends party inspo pictures I found online I would have to get really creative with the DIY.
I figured I was going to have to end up printing a lot of stuff myself at home. I must admit, I did use a lot of printer ink (mostly because of the comic book party favors I decided to print and assemble myself – which came out incredible, although very time consuming and expensive). I also printed stickers with the characters’ faces, personalized labels and posters.
The Coolest Invitation Ever (according to the kids who received it)
Since Monica And Friends is a comic book series I thought what could be more fitting than making the invitations look like a comic book? I downloaded images from their app and designed the invitation myself on the Pic Collage app, which I used for everything I printed.
I made the front of the invitation look like the cover of a comic book and the inside look like a story. I added quote bubbles to the images and wrote the party information inside them.
DIY Backdrop
Pictured above is the backdrop I came up with, made with a square foil balloon wall and a character banner I printed myself with my home printer. I’m pretty happy with how it came out, although I wish I had ordered two sets of the balloon wall so that the backdrop would come out larger. It turned out to be the perfect height for the kids which is really what matters.
DIY Party Favor Bags
I found a lot of favor bag ideas online, and finally decided to go with a simple plain red bag with a personalized tag, tied with yellow ribbon. I purposely used a larger size red bag than most common favor bags, so kids would be able to pick out their own giant lolipops, candy bags/boxes, popcorn bags and comic book and fit everything into their red favor bags.
Popcorn Bags
I love making popcorn bags or boxes for kids birthday parties. They are always a hit with adults and kids. For these ones I used Dollar Tree popcorn bags, printed round labels with Monica’s face and filled the bags about half way in order to fold and close them. I like to try different popcorn flavors for different parties, and this time I used Boom Chicka Pop Sweet & Salty Kettle Corn.
DIY Personalized Giant Lollipops
These giant lollipops have become a staple of all our parties, and all the kids love them! I have been buying these since my daughter’s first birthday party and they are fairly cheap and easy to make. I bought the lollipops at Dollar Tree, printed personalized label stickers to cover the original labels, and put them in cellophane bags I got online. I made the block base with styrofoam and wrapped it in comic book pages I printed in black and white.
DIY Coloring Mat
I like to come up with a fun activity for the kids to do during the party. I saw an inspiration photo of what looked like a giant coloring mat and had the idea to make one. This is a fun activity kids can do, and I recommend it to be set outdoors (to avoid the mess inside the house). I printed Monica And Friends coloring pages, glued them onto a roll of white paper and put out washable watercolor pallets (reused from another party), water cups and brushes.
Candy Boxes And Bags
For past parties I have done an open Candy Bar for kids to help themselves to all kinds of candies. Since this time I wasn’t able to use any store-bought party decor, everything that was going on the tables including candy, desserts and snacks had to double as decoration. I found a lot of pictures online of really cute packaged candy with character stickers that I used as inspiration to make the candy boxes and bags. In order to make the candy part of the decoration, it had to match the theme colors: red, yellow, green, blue. In addition to printing character stickers for the boxes and bags, I chose candy in those specific colors.
DIY Comic Books As Party Favors
Most kids in the U.S. are not familiar with Monica And Friends comic books. Although the comic books are published in multiple languages, including English, they are only sold in Brazil.
I thought a good way to introduce the series to our young guests would be to give each child a comic book in English as a party favor. In the past I’ve had multiple family members who visit from Brazil bring my kids Monica comic books in English (as well as in Portuguese). I so wish I had the idea of giving out the English comic books several months in advance so there would have been enough time for my dad or sister to bring the books directly from Brazil. It would have taken a lot less work and cost a fraction of the price.
As with everything for this party, since I wasn’t able to buy the books I decided to make them myself. I looked up multiple options to have the books made by a printing service, and as it turns out it would have cost a lot to have them professionally printed. I then decided to have only the single-sided cover printed on glossy paper at Staples, and print the inside double-sided pages myself at home.
I downloaded a full edition of the comic book in English and printed the pages in my home printer. The printing quality came out mostly good, with exception of a few pages that printed in a slightly different color when the ink cartridge needed to be changed. I was incredibly satisfied with the final result!
The comic books came out absolutely beautiful and I am very proud of my hard work!
That being said there are a few things I definitely wish I had done differently to save me time and money. Each comic book is made up of several stories. I downloaded a full comic book which made each of the 20 books that I printed over 35 pages long. That’s a lot of pages. Besides the enormous amount of work and time it took to print and put each book together, it also took a lot of ink to print all those pages in color. A lot.
About half way through this project I regretted having made the book that long, but it was too late to make any changes because it would mean having to start over and therefore waste all the pages that had already been printed. What I wish I had done instead is chosen maybe 2 or 3 stories from the book and only printed those, as opposed to printing the entire 35+ pages. The printed book could have been half, or even a third the length of the original book and it still would have been just as nice and saved a lot of time, and money.
DIY Character Posters
One of the challenges of throwing a party with a theme that isn’t well known here is that most of the guests are not familiar with the characters of the series. Monica And Friends has dozens of characters, but for the party I chose to focus on the main four: Monica, Maggy, Jimmy Five and Smudge. In order to introduce the characters to our guests I decided to make posters of each character with a short summary of their main characteristics.
I used construction paper from the dollar store, designed and printed the the posters shown above, then laminated them with clear contact paper.
Cake Time Is The Best Time
We’re lucky to be a part of a family of bakers, who for over two decades have made me, and now my kids, the most amazing cakes anyone could ask for! My uncle Roberto made this beautiful cake that my daughter absolutely loved, and we are so grateful.
Easy Balloon Decor
I made the mistake of trying to make a balloon arch in the past and it was impossibly hard, time-consuming and it did not come out quite how I envisioned, so I ordered the balloon arch from professionals this time. I have found, however, that there’s a huge variety of foil balloons online that are pretty affordable and can be easily arranged as balloon clusters and used as decor throughout the space. For this party I ordered gold and red star-shaped foil balloons, and a couple of large number “5” balloons.
In the past I have used a helium tank bought at a party decor store in order to fill up the balloons I ordered online. I’ve had mixed results, as the helium balloons can sometimes leak a bit if filled the day before the party. I figured out that using an automatic air pump to fill the balloons (with air, not helium) can work out really well especially for foil balloons. Although they don’t float on their own, the foil balloons can still be arranged in clusters and hung with a string or even taped onto the wall.
Things I did not DIY
A few months ago I reached out to my favorite local party planning company, Build-A-Party, to ask if they had a Monica And Friends backdrop, and at the time they only had the backdrop that features one of the characters, Maggy, but not the entire group
Thankfully, due to multiple requests by clients, they were able to acquire the backdrop in time for my daughter’s party. I am so glad I was able to rent the backdrop as well as the 3 cylinder tables with table covers (watermelon is the character Maggy’s favorite food, so it appears as part of the theme) and the multiple colorful cake and pastry stands. They also made the beautiful balloon arch around the circular backdrop. I absolutely love how everything turned out! Being able to rent/buy these items made such a huge difference given how many other things I had to make myself.
I must say I am in fact a pro at making brigadeiro. I used to make brigadeiro professionally for several years, and that’s why I can confidently say it is a lot of work and I am so glad I did not have to make the brigadeiros for this party.
I love to have a wide variety of snacks for the kids to choose from at parties. I usually get cookies, mini cupcakes, muffins or whatever they have at the grocery store bakery. Sometimes mini donuts if they’re available and different kinds of chips, fruit pouches and crackers and make sure to set up everything within reach so the kids can feel comfortable grabbing whatever they want to eat.
We also served a variety of other appetizers, snacks and pizza. Some could argue my husband got a little overly excited with he pizza order, and ended up ordering way too many pizzas to the point of some guests taking full pizzas as leftovers. God forbid anyone ever say they went hungry at one of my parties!
Drinks
I usually like to have a variety of cold drinks available, especially at summer parties when the weather can get pretty hot. We were lucky with this party, because although the weather forecast was initially showing rain, it ended up being sunny and hot for the whole party (and we only got a tornado warning after the party was over- story for another post). Anyway, I usually do 3 coolers with ice and a drink table. This time I decided to separate the drinks in two areas, with two drink tables for adults and for kids. We set up 2 of the coolers in the adult area; one with alcoholic beverages and the other with soda and water. In the picture below is showing the adult drink table, set up with the ice machine, a tub with ice and bottles of sparkling wine and different juice flavors, and berry and citrus garnish.
Behind the fence shown in the picture above is the kids area, where the swing set is and where the kids spent most of the time playing. You might also notice a round table in the picture (of which I apparently failed to take a decent picture) where I set up cups, straws and two lemonade dispensers accessible for the kids. Also on the table is a smaller tub filled with ice, mini water bottles and juice pouches. In the kids area we also set up the smaller cooler filled with water and juice pouches.
It’s all in the details
Among the many things I was excited about for this party, is the outfits that my daughters were going to wear. In the comic books the main character, Monica, wears a red dress, so we got the birthday girl, one too. Monica’s best friend, Maggy, wears a yellow dress, which is what we got for her little sister.
They were both so excited to wear their new dresses. but what I was the most excited about is the accessories I got for them. Since Monica often carries her favorite blue stuffed bunny (Samson), I was able to find the most adorable blue bunny earrings and bracelets with a blue bunny charm.
Maggy loves to eat, and her favorite food is watermelon (thus the watermelon details throughout the decor) so I found watermelon earrings and bracelets with a watermelon charm to go with the yellow dress.
I came across a watermelon necklace set that separately looks like watermelon slices, then forms a heart when put together, that both girls could wear. It looked super cute and perfectly on theme.
The Best Party Of Planning Any Party
I love hosting and seeing all my guests having a good time and enjoying the party I worked so hard on. Absolutely nothing is better than seeing the joy on my daughter’s face looking at all the balloons, colors and her favorite characters all around her knowing it was all for her birthday. It’s so worth every minute of hard work and staying up late so many nights making everything. Priceless.
Things That Keep Me Sane-ish 