Monkey Party

My little pumpkin monkey turned 3.  I decided to throw her a monkey themed party because she can be found swinging on door handles, scaling kitchen cupboards, dangling from cupboard edges, jumping off couches and doing summersaults all over the place.  A monkey party was the only fitting theme. 

In case a monkey party is a suitable theme for one of your children I'll share a few of the details.

This coloring page was my inspiration for most everything.  You can find it by going here

I used the coloring page monkey to design and create the invites.  The mouth opens to reveal the party info.  I printed the party info onto a sticker sheet (I found them at Office Max).  I cut around the information and stuck it inside the monkey mouth.  A link to print off the monkey card pattern is at the end of this post.

Snack cups-filled with my monkeys favorite: Dorritos.  These are Martha Stewart inspired.  The monkey face is created with circles (one large for the mouth-cut in half and two small for the ears).  The eyes and nostrils are drawn on with black marker.  The cups are from the Dollar store.

Party guests included these super adorable Dollar Store monkeys.  I added pink tutu's and hair bows for the girls and bow ties for the boys (see end of the post).  The hair bows and bow ties are attached with a piece of sticky velcro.  The monkeys were a huge hit as a take home prize.

I wanted to create monkey treat bags but didn't have time to cut out all the pieces from the monkey face invite to put on the bags so instead I printed off the monkey from the coloring page, chalked it, cut it and hung it by it's tail on a ribbon.  The treat bags held non-edible prizes mostly (since her birthday is on Halloween and the kids don't need any more candy).

Toilet tissue roll binoculars were for the banana hunt and monkey hunt we did in the yard.  I wanted to make these super cutesie but I got a reality check and decided that since they were for 7 kids under the age of 5 they didn't need to be fancy.  Duct tape did the trick.

A simple monkey cake.  For some reason a cake and candles are the last thing on my mind with birthday parties.  I almost always forget-hence the super simple cake design.

Monkey cupcake toppers on chocolate cupcakes watched over by this handsome and furry guest.

We played pin the tail on the monkey

Then each kid got a pair of binoculars so we could head to the backyard to find all the bananas those silly monkeys spread everywhere.

The bananas were made out of Dollar Store paper plates.  I taped candy on the backs of some and spread them all over the yard.  The kids had to find some and put them in their paper sacks so they could feed the monkeys later.

After they found all the bananas they set out to find the monkeys.  It just so happened that there were a bunch hanging from this tree.

Each kid got to pick their own monkey pal to take home.

Then there was cake and goodies and opening presents.  It wasn't until the presents part that my little pumpkin monkey finally decided having a birthday party was alright.  The mom's loved all the details even if they were lost on a 3 year old.  

Here's a close up of the treat bags.

Mr. & Mrs. Monkey

Here is the link to the coloring page I used to create the birthday girls special shirt

And lastly here is a copy of the monkey card pattern pieces.  Happy party planning.

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