I am so excited to finally share Jeffrey’s Vintage Comic Book Style Super Hero Birthday Party! (On a Budget!) Yes, I did say it – On.A.Budget.  Now, before I say that – this party was not free or “super” cheap.  Now don’t get your super hero cape in a bunch just yet…. this party is totally doable and is a slimmed down version of our popular Vintage Pop Art Style Super Hero Party that I had for little Super Pierson a couple years ago! (But STILL with the same WOW factors!)

Some of the biggest impact came from the most unexpected things!  Here are some of our favorite elements from the party, so be sure to take note as you are browsing the pics:
– We created Super Hero City Building Centerpieces using cheap cd crates & white paper (in the windows). (Budget friendly & high impact!)
– Fun Kryptonite Cupcakes made from store bought cupcakes, rock candy and cupcake toppers.
– Budget friendly Super Hero Cake with printable buildings, ribbon and candy. (Make it for under $20! WOW!)
– Super Hero Favor Tin Lunch boxes full of $ Dollar store treat repackaging ideas for big impact.

You might remember the Vintage Pop Art Super Hero Party that I planned for my son, Pierson, about 3 years ago.  It is one of our favorite parties that we have styled, and we often get the question of “I love it, but how much would that COST?!”  I know it was NOT a cheap party, so I wanted to design a party that had a similar feel and vibe, but that was full of cost effective and DIY elements so you can throw a Super Hero party AND be Super Mom while keeping things within a reasonable budget.  I have added up the totals of every single element used in the party and am going to share all of the details.  You can pick and choose what you want to use for your own party.

One of the best budgeting tips is to plan early and start buying early when you see things on sale.  The biggest thing is shopping online to stock up for the party.  I also have invested in white cake stands that I use for almost all of my parties.  White platters are essential for any party, so those are items I didn’t include in the cost breakdown because I have them on hand always.

For our party, we had the kids come to our house to get dressed in their custom Super hero t-shirt. Then we went to get lunch/pizza and went to see the new Super Man movie in the theater.  We came back to my house for cake and treats.

THE DESSERT TABLE

I tried to think of ideas that gave the biggest bang for your buck on the dessert table.  Lots of store-bought items made cuter and recipes that are simple and eye catching!  This dessert table could be recreated for under $100!

– Backdrop ($9 for printable design):  Fabric backdrops can get costly and we found a way to give a similar effect by creating a printable backdrop that your local printer can print or we offer professional printing.  We offer an instant download of the pop art black and white polka dot pattern in our shop for $9 as an instant download!  Print as many as you need!  We used it in two spots and it was a great and dramatic backdrop for our focal tables and used masking tape to adhere it to the wall.

– City Skyline Buildings:  I found these plastic CD crates here (or you can spray paint these the color of your choice) and simply placed cutouts of white cardstock in each of the sides and taped them in place.  Once I turned them upside down and stacked them, they totally resembled buildings!

– Super Emblem Poster on Backdrop $9 for Emblem design):  My son has been begging me to make him a “Super J” emblem for his room, so I designed a printable emblem. We offer professional printing for these 20×30 posters and they are great quality.  Now he hangs it above his bed and it was dual- purpose.

– Cake ($11.99 white cake, $1 ribbon, $9 buildings printable, $1 candy trim):  Our local Super Target sold a round 2 layer white cake for $11.99 and we embellished it to look like a custom decorated Super Hero cake.  Chevron ribbon, yellow Lemon Head candy border, super emblem and printable city skyline buildings toppers.  So easy, quick and adorable!  Thanks to my girl, Mandie, of Got What It Cakes for the support – she knows I have anxiety about touching or carrying cakes!

– Kryptonite Cupcakes ($3 for 6 plain white cupcakes, $2 green rock candy sticks, Inexpensive Baking liners or Baking Cups):  We ordered a dozen white cupcakes from Walmart and embellished them with crushed up green rock candy to resemble Kryptonite.  We added a printable cupcake topper and placed them in yellow baking cups.

– Super Hero Chocolate Bars ($0.50 each!):  We added a printable chocolate bar wrapper from our collection to regular sized Hersheys Chocolate Bars and they looked adorable scattered on one of the buildings!  The kids could take these with them to the movie and enjoy as a favor.

– Super Layered Jello ($6 total!):  You can easily make layered jello to color coordinate with your theme and these were a huge hit at Pierson’s Super Hero party, so we made them again for Jeffrey’s! Less than $1 per pack of Jello (x3 colors), $1 for gelatin and $1 for sweetened condensed milk, $1 for shot glasses at Dollar Tree.  You can follow the instructions on our Ruff Draft for how to make these. So easy! Don’t forget to add your printable topper to make it “Super hero” themed!

– Super Oreos ($2.99 or purchase from Sugar Wood):  We displayed the most adorable homemade Oreos made by Sugar Wood. You also could take store bought oreos and display them in cute stacks! (Or even get the seasonal or Spring oreos with the colored icing to display!)  The printable topper callout bubble just adds that extra level of detail! (And who doesn’t LOVE Oreos!?)

– Super Hero Favor Lunch Boxes with Coloring Page front (around $3.50 each):  I found the cutest small tin lunch boxes at AC Moore for $1.20 each and decided to make those the favor boxes and also double as the treat bag with snacks for the kids to take to see the super hero movie.  See below for the breakdown. (I found lots of fabulous goodies at Dollar Tree and repackaged them to be extra cute… read below for more).

FAVORS

Using resources like the Dollar store and craft store dollar section along with personalized touches from printables, you can find come up some adorable favors for the kids.  Buying big packs of candy and treats and repackaging them for each person is a great way to stretch your dollar!

– Super Hero Tin Lunch Box Favors (around $3.50 each): I found these little metal lunch boxes at AC Moore on clearance for $1.20 each!  I added a printable coloring page to the outside of the box and a printable favor tag tied with Twine from The Twinery.  Inside were lots of repackaged treats from the Dollar Tree!  Repackaging and adding printables makes everything look cuter!

Inside the tin lunch box we included:
– Gumballs in cellophane bags wrapped to look like gumball tubes and sealed with a 2″ party logo.
– Mini Candy Bars wrapped with our printable chocolate bar wrappers.
– Pixie Sticks (Dollar Tree had these in solid colors in a Cars themed package!) – added a printable flag to add detail and keep the 3 pixie sticks together
– Lemon Heads with a “Super Sour” Party logo on the front
– Lollipops with a printable logo on the front side
– Super Hero pop rocks
– Mini Chevron treat bags with a printable 2″ party logo sticker and filled with crayons for coloring the outside skyline coloring cover.

– Personalized Shirts ($2 blank shirts): Thinking ahead and buying items ahead really helps save money!  We bought the blue blank t-shirts from Micheals when they were on sale for $2 each!  We offer the printable super emblems in our shop and you can print them and use them for so many things!  These were used with onlinelabels.com opaque transfer papers to create the shirts.

– Personalized Aluminum Water Bottles ($1 each): I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the super emblems for each child and adhered them to the bottles.  The aluminum bottles were found at the Dollar Tree! Can’t beat it!

– POPcorn (<$3 total): I bought some white cheddar popcorn and some polka dot bags ($1.50 at Hobby Lobby!) and bagged up some POP corn and added the cute super hero “POP” party logo!  The kids loved these and took the bags with them to the movies.  They looked so cool on the favor table, too!

– Super Sours ($<0.50/each): I found multi packs of mini Lemon Head packs that were adorable.  I added the “Super Sour” 2″ party logo (so it looks like the little man is yelling “Super Sour!”) on the front and displayed these on the dessert table.  The kids grabbed some to go.

– Gumballs (~$8): I bought some gumballs and sorted the colors I needed and then displayed them in plastic ramekins that matched the blue I was using (3 pack for $1 at Dollar Tree!).  I added a “MMM”, “YUM” party logo on a toothpick to each bowl to help tie in the theme.

KIDS’ TABLE

I wanted a dramatic centerpiece and so I continued with the buildings!  At $1 each, you can’t go wrong.  The table total was less than $50 to design!  The bonus – lots of the things I can reuse.  I also added more chocolate bars and cupcakes to the building centerpiece to help tie the two tables together.

– Chevron Table Cloth ($14.99 on sale at Hobby Lobby): I tend to use blue for lots of my parties, so I found a great chevron blue table cloth that I can use for future parties as well!  It was 1/2 off at Hobby Lobby.

– Chevron Runner ($5!): I found chevron fabric on fabric.com and bought a yard, cut it in half and folded the edges under. I sewed them together to create a runner to break up all the blue and add a light contrast.

– Place Settings (~$3.00 each): I saw the Super Hero summer collection at Target and decided to buy the polkadot plastic cups to use in my house for my kids anyhow – at $1.79 each, it makes a great statement on the table and is something I can reuse.  I bought a pack of black/white paper polka dot plates for $3 at Hobby Lobby, square plates for $2 at Walmart, and plastic forks/knives at the Dollar Tree.  I found the squiggle straws at Micheals in the dollar spot (5 per pack!) and added a printable flag.  Another great and cheap way to add a pop to the table and carry out the theme is by adding a water bottle with a printable drink wrap.

ACTIVITIES

– Out to Lunch: After the movie, we took the kids to get pizza at our local pizza carry-out place.  New York style pizza to order!  The total tab was under $25 and we served all 11 of us!  You can even go cheaper by finding a pizza place that has lunch specials!  Our Little Caesars sells $5 pizzas for lunch, and same with Pizza Hut!  The extra bonus – no mess to clean up at home!

– See a Super Hero Movie:  We have a local movie theater that shows $5 movies all day long and it just so happened that the new Super Man (Man of Steele) was showing that week.  That was the reason Jeffrey wanted a Super Hero party in the first place, so we bought tickets early and took the kiddos to see the movie.  The kids loved going to see it with their friends, and brought their tin favor box full of treats to enjoy at the movies (Some theaters don’t even ask about bringing in your own snacks. )

Want to go even more budget friendly?  Rent an old (or new) Super Hero movie and show it in your home!  As low as $1.50 at Redbox!  The kids will still have a ball watching a super hero movie with their friends!

– Coloring Sheet: Before the movie started, the kids took out their crayons from their favor lunchboxes and colored the front black and white printable page that we had adhered to the front of the lunchbox.  This kept them busy and not asking “When is it going to start!?”

The kids had snacks in their tin lunch box to enjoy during the movie and the POPcorn.

PRINTABLES

We used our New Vintage Comic Book style Super Hero party printables to add extra touches throughout the party.  From the banner to the callout bubbles, they were cost effective and added that extra touch to help the table feel “super hero”.  We found cheap candy and favor items and simply added style and coordination by using the printables.  Sometimes the most bang for your buck comes from printables, backdrops and fabrics.  Pick and choose what you want to use for decorating and repackaging.

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CREDITS:

– Complete Event Styling, Photography & Concept: Anders Ruff
– Super Hero Party Printables: Anders Ruff

SOURCES:
– Plastic Crates (for making buildings): Here or here (Spray paint the light ones the color of your choice!)
– Yellow Baking Cups: here or here
– Chevron Treat Bags: here
– Cake: DIY for under $15 with Anders Ruff Printable Topper
– Lemon heads for favors and cake liner: here
– Gumballs: here
– Super Oreos: Sugar Wood
– Cotton Baker’s Twine: here or The Twinery
– Opaque Iron On Transfers & Label Material: OnlineLabels.com

MORE PARTY ESSENTIALS SOURCES:
– White Rectangular Platters here
– Cake Stands here or here