ID Mommy: DIY Curious George / Monkey Birthday Party

My baby boy turned two! Woah, did that time go fast! He can't get enough bananas and loves monkeys like crazy, so we of course had to give him a Curious George monkey party. Here's what we did if you're looking for any ideas!

Invitations
I used a Curious George image online and made these invitations. The inside says "Translation: You are Invited to...etc, etc."

Decorations
With a little creativity you can decorate with a theme without spending any money on licensed character party supplies...


Who needs expensive balloons with licensed characters when you have a plain dollar store balloon and a Sharpie? (Okay, it helps to have a mom who can draw too. But I also put a big "2" on one balloon and his name on another. You could even decorate them with stickers and let the kids help!

We had these Curious George fruit snacks for the kids, so I cut out the pictures from the boxes and sprinkled them around the buffet as decorative "confetti!"

To mimic the Man with the Yellow Hat, I bought these yellow party hats from Amazon and simply drew a black band around each one with a fat permanent marker.

Activities

Pinata made by Mommy! Paper mache on a balloon! The ears are made of a ring of cardboard from a toilet paper tube cut in half...one half taped on for each ear and then covered with newspaper and paper mache. I used some old wall paint we had left over to paint it and used a black Sharpie for the black details.

I printed out some of these free coloring sheets from PBS.com for the kids to color.

The Cake
I did a couple versions of cake...one was a banana shaped banana cake with cream cheese frosting. It turned out really yummy! But Momma loves chocolate and Mommy birthed the baby on baby's birth day, so Momma also made chocolate cupcakes and got her favorite kind of ice cream.

Here's the banana cake shaped and ready for frosting. It started as a 9 x 13" rectangular cake. Pretty ugly, huh?! It didn't want to come out of the pan, despite my heavy greasing and flouring job, so it split apart on me. But, hey, frosting covers a multitude of sins...

I just used a can of cream cheese frosting for this. First I did this white part.

I added yellow food coloring to the remainder of the frosting to do the rest, then used a black decorating pen for the details.

Here it is all done with some of the monkey cupcakes! Below you can see the cupcake process...

The Monkey Cupcakes:

I found the idea on Pinterest of course! But, I made a couple of my own tweaks with the faces.

Here's what you need to for the cupcakes (minus the actual cake). I tried this thing I saw on Pinterest and just added a can of Coke to a box of chocolate cake mix and they were yummy!

Chop a little bit of the side off of the mini Nilla Wafers for the ears.

Face parts ready to go on the frosted cupcakes

Use a regular Nilla wafer for the nose/mouth and the smaller ones for the ears.

Here's my tweak: I used upside-down white chocolate chips.

Then add the details with the black icing tube. I decided to make mine a little more fun with some different expressions!


Finished monkeys!

The Menu
We did a baked potato bar which turned out great. I tried another great Pinterest idea and baked the potatoes in my Crock pot. I know it takes way longer, but I loved it...one less thing for me to worry about right before or during the party! We put out lots of yummy toppings. I baked a pan full of bacon in the AM and made bacon bits, then we also had a bowl of shredded cheese, diced ham, sour cream, green onions, regular onions, and of course butter!

Of course there were plenty of bananas all over the place, and a bowl of Curious George fruit snacks!

We also had chips & dip, carrots & dip, clementines, etc. It was a great menu for a group, and everything could be done ahead of time which is always a must for parties!