21250

Transformers/Super Hero's Unite Party 4yr

March 2010

Leanne in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Runner Up

My son has fallen in love with Transformers (cars that are robots what could be better?!) so he wanted a Transformer party. Our biggest problem was that most of our guests were going to be girls who had absolutely no idea about Transformers so we decided to combine it with a Superheroes theme. The result was FANTASTIC & so much fun!

INVITATION For the invitations I decided to  create a newspaper article from The Daily Planet (written by Clark Kent of course)! The headline read: Autobots and Superheroes Unite! The article read: As Megatron moves closer to finding the Allspark, Optimus Prime has been forced to call on Earth's Superheroes  for help. Optimus Prime has made an impassioned plea to all Autobots & Superheroes to join the hunt for the Allspark at Nate's 4th Birthday party. Nate's transformation into a 4 yr old marks the day the prophecies say the Allspark will be discovered. The Allspark is the source of life & power for the Tranformers. If it were to fall into Megatron's hands, the results for earth would be disastrous. Nate will be transforming into a 4 yr old on (date) at (time).

Superheroes are asked to come in costume for ease of recognition & to make their way to (address) for a briefing & training prior to the search beginning. Superheroes are asked to RSVP to Optimus Prime by (date) on (contact details). It was all set out like a newspaper. I also had 2 images. One day I got my son and daughter to dress up in all their different superhero costumes (they have a lot) and took pics in front of a white sheet. I then used Photoshop to combine the images.  One image had Batman and Optimus Prime  back-to-back (both Nate) & the other had all the heroes standing in a V. It was to give the other kids an idea of who they could come as. I printed it out A5 size on glossy photo paper and attached a magnet to the back. These invites were a MASSIVE hit! The parents tell me that the recipients loved them and haven't been able to keep their hands off them (even with the party over)!

DECORATIONS There was a balloon archway over the top of the front stairs & as you walked up the stairs, a giant sign (FIL is a printer) that said Welcome with a pic of the superheroes in a V (from invite) and in the bottom corner more than meets the eye. As they walked to the front door there were 2 other signs. One was Secret Headquarters with the same image & the other said Happy 4th Birthday Nate with a nice photo of him. The back deck was where the party was. Around the outside of the deck I had giant helium balloon shapes of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Spiderman, Batman, Superman & the Justice League. I also had signs all along the balcony as you walked out that were Happy Birthday signs from the store: Spiderman, Batman, Superman and the Happy Birthday Nate sign.

I had also printed out the symbols for Autobots, Spiderman & the Justice League heroes (Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman & Flash Gordon). I had 2 of each sign that I laminated and we hung randomly from the roof all over the deck. There were also red, yellow and blue balloons. To cover the BBQ, I used a Spiderman tablecloth and put on it scrapbooks of my son from the past year as well as a photobook I had made of him over the past year. The food table had a Superman tablecloth. I placed his photo with Batman and his photo with the Justice League from Movie World on either side of the cake. There were Batman & Spiderman cups, Spiderman & Marvel hero plates, Spiderman straws and Superman napkins for guests to help themselves to.

The kids table was set up with a Transformer theme. I put 3 Ikea kid tables together and covered with a blue plastic tablecloth. Transformer partyware is hard to come by over here so I made my own. I made an Autobot symbol stencil & painted red symbols all the way down the centre of the tablecloth. I bought red plastic plates & printed out pics of Optimus Prime that I laminated, cut out and attached to the plates. I bought blue party horns and red cups and to both I attached Transformer stickers. I used red cutlery. I also bought hard straws with a robot looking design on them. My DH custom made me some food stands for the tables since they are so little and narrow & I painted them red and blue. In the centre of the table I made a centrepiece with little balloons Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, a blue 4 balloon & 3 stars  red, blue & gold.

I also printed out 3 images of Transformers Animated & stuck them together in a triangle around the jar holding the balloons. It looked awesome with the sea of red and blue! In the corner of the deck we set up a photo area. I had a blue tablecloth as the background on the wall. In front we had a life-sized pic that I had painted of Superman with the head cut out (so they could put their face in  the pics were used on the thank you cards). Around the yard at the various stations, I had other life-sized images I had painted of Batman, Spiderman, Megatron, Bumblebee & Optimus Prime. I also had pennant Happy Birthday signs all around the yard as well as Wow and Bang signs. I also had decorated the fort with orange & yellow cardboard flames so that it looked like it was on fire. Inside I had a DVD of his past year that I had made playing.

ACTIVITIES Prior to the party, I compiled a playlist with all the superhero theme songs as well as action sounding songs to play in the background. To start, the Transformers theme came on & I called all the kids to me. I distributed their adventure packs (I had sewn drawstring backpacks, and painted on the Autobot symbols and their names) as I explained to them again that we needed to find the Allspark before Megatron did. We started off with Superman in Metropolis.

The training from Superman was that we needed to practice blending into society & then transforming into a superhero at a moment's notice. Inside their bags were glasses & a cape that I asked them to pull out. The capes were just a red plastic tablecloth that I had cut into a cape shape. I attached sticky velcro to fasten the cape & wrote Super (name) on the back in glitter glue. They put their capes along the edge of the garden and put on their glasses and walked around saying I'm cool, I'm cool (they loved saying it) & as soon as the Superman theme music started they would discard their glasses & throw on their cape then race over to the fort & down the slide and back to the start. We did this twice and the kids giggled hysterically. At the end I opened a note from Superman with the logo on it and it said that Metropolis was all clear. 

So then we headed down to New York to see Spiderman (the Spiderman theme played as we moved to the area). Spiderman had an obstacle course set up for us. The kids had to go into the jumping castle, climb up and come down the slide, through the tunnel, then through the spider web (a rope tied into a web through our swing set), they had to tackle Spiderman (a Spiderman punch bag) and then practice web blasting Megatron. To web blast Megatron they had to find the can of silly string in their backpacks and then blast the life-sized Megatron I had painted. This was probably the thing they loved most during the adventure. They sprayed and sprayed until their can was empty.

After they'd finished blasting Megatron, I got them to practice putting handcuffs on my DD's giant stuffed frog, one at a time. They took it very seriously. Once they had the handcuffs on, they'd shout And that's justice! When everyone had a turn, we found a note from Spiderman that said there was no sign of the Allspark in New York.  All of a sudden we saw the bat symbol flying over Gotham City (my sister was shining my son's Batman torch on the roof of the deck). We all ran up as the Batman theme played. My sister was dressed up as a police officer. She was so grateful to see all the superheroes. She told them Pyromanic had set fire to the Childcare Centre and there were still babies trapped inside. They couldn't get near the babies because Pyromanic was still on the loose and would foil any attempt the emergency services made to get into the building. The superheroes agreed to help.

They had to climb through a tunnel to avoid the flames, then scale the building (rock climbing wall of the fort) and rescue a baby (my DD's dolls one for each hero) and slide down the slide and get back to safety. Pyromanic was running around trying to get them (Pyromanic was my DH with a bright red curly hair wig and a wooden pop gun). They giggled and whooped as they ran around as DH chased them and popped the gun at them and they finally got the babies to safety. They then turned their attention to capturing Pyromanic and as a group tackled him. Then Nate slapped on the metal handcuffs (which rather hurt I'm told) and they took him to the Police Chief and she sent him off to jail. She then told the kids that the city was so grateful that they wanted to reward them. She shook their hands and pulled out a bag of money (choc coins) for each of them which they put in their backpacks.

Batman had left us a note saying that the Allspark wasn't in Gotham City but Optimus Prime was sending word that he needed our help. We paused at this point to get a group shot of all the heroes. Then we headed to Optimus Prime while the Transformer theme played. All the villains had descended and it was time for the final battle! Here there were laminated A4 pics of various Superheroes spread over the ground (one per child). We played superhero music while the kids danced around. When the music stopped they jumped on a picture. I then pulled a villain name out of one hat and a superhero name out of the other and would say (for example) The Joker defeated by Wonder Woman!. Whoever was standing on that hero would pick up their pic and bring it to me where I would take it from them, shake their hand and hand them a small gold trophy and thank them for their contribution to the final battle. They would then sit out. This method meant they were actually excited to be out! I left Optimus Prime and Megatron until last.

Once we had run through everyone I picked up Optimus Prime's message. It said Transformers always hide in plain sight and it is no different with this greatest of treasure. We had to work it out and the kids were very quick to realise that the Treasure Chest pinata must be the Allspark. I had taken the skull and crossbones off and replaced it with an Autobot/Decepticon symbol from a clothing tag. I reminded them again that the Allspark must be destroyed at all costs. They took turns hitting it until it broke. We discovered when it broke that it had left a final spark of life for each child. Inside I had put a loot bag for each child with a cheap Transformer (dodgy one from $2 shop) and sealed the bag with their sticker photo since they can't read yet. They found their pic, got their Transformer in the loot bag and then topped their loot bag up with lollies and this was the end of the adventure. We went up to have food and cake and they spent the rest of the afternoon playing. 

Costumes Nate dressed up in his Bumblebee (Transformer) costume, my daughter dressed up as Supergirl, I dressed up as Batgirl and my husband wore his Autobot shirt. Food I had so much food! For the kids we had Justice League cupcakes carrot cakes with fondant toppers and symbols (Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern, Batman and Flash Gordon), mini Neenish tarts that I'd decorated with a red background and chocolate spider web (like Spiderman), mini chocolate tarts, mini caramel tarts and cups of tea (Tic Toc biscuits with a marshmallow & freckle for the cup and tea and half a lifesaver for a handle put together with Royal Icing). We also had for the adults and kids alike mini pies, mini sausage rolls, mini quiches, mini pizzas, gourmet sandwich wraps, a fruit platter, rainbow ice cream,  chips and dip & white choc & blueberry muffins. When the kids sat down to eat there was a sea of blue and red as so many of the kids were either Supergirl, Wonder Woman or Spiderman. It looked awesome and made for gorgeous pics!

Cake I made a very cool two tier fondant cake with all the different symbols. The top tier (a white choc coconut mudcake & ganache) was divided into 3 sections with the Autobot (silver) on black background), Wonder Woman (blue background) and Green Lantern (green background). The bottom tier (chocolate mudcake with Nutella filling & choc ganache) was divided into 4 sections with Superman (sky blue background), Flash Gordon (red background), Batman (yellow background) and Spiderman was a red background with black webs and two giant Spiderman eyes. On top I had made a fondant Nate and had loads of Stars shooting out of the top of the cake. Each section was separated by a white strip of fondant and it was wrapped around the base of each tier too. 

Favors I bought a couple of packs of brightly coloured paper bags with handles.  There were 2 or so of each colour and I used these to theme according to superhero. Blue bags had Autobot or Superman symbols, green bags had the Green Lantern symbol, maroon bags the Flash Gordon symbol, purple bags had the Wonder Woman symbol, red bags had black spiderwebs drawn all over and a Spiderman pic & yellow bags were the Batman symbol. Inside each bag was: A colouring book & pack of crayons I made with the image from the invitations, a notebook, pencil and superman eraser (a la Clark Kent), mini camera (a la Peter Parker), plastic handcuffs, superhero shaped bubbles, superhero foamie stickers, Spidy sticky hand, Spidy sticky man (wall crawler), swirly lollipop, a Bat symbol torch keychain, personalised chocolate bar, first reader Transformer book, first reader Superhero book and a superhero kit with paint set (blank mask, belt buckle and wrist strap along with a worksheet and ID card to develop their personality). All the kids loved their bags! This was a fabulously fun party and my son has already declared he wants the same again next year!

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