Happy birthday, Max!

So my littlest dude is turning 5 this morning, and we had his party a bit early ('cause who's available to attend a New Year's Eve b-day party...for a 5 year old?). Nothing would do for the munchkin but a Man-Batman themed party. What? You've never heard of Man-Batman? 

Man-Batman is none other than Adam West, as in the original Batman movie, which is Max's favorite thing ever. More beloved than Ninja Turtles. Cooler than Chima Legos. Better than Wii games. When he watches the movie (for the eleventy billionth time), he has been known to announce, "That is a great movie!" at the end. It inspired his love of tuxedos (check out his hashtag #maxlovestuxedos on Instagram for a giggle), and unfortunately for poor ol' Adam West, he actually loves Burt Ward's Robin just a wee bit more than Batman... He calls them Man-Batman because they are not cartoons, dig?

The thing is, no one really makes Man-Batman anything anymore, at least not for kids parties. Collectors items and such yes, but Party City does not have a selection of Man-Batman items. In fact, their entire Batman area in general was pretty sad. So I whipped up this quick little panel invite using a long retired superhero set and a photo of Adam and Burt doing their thing. Max could not have been more pleased, and I was happy to use up my stash of retired colors like Sunny Yellow. Win-Win!

Here's the backside of the panel, with a little fussy cut bat signal (the lamplight leading up to the signal is colored with an alcohol marker), and a bit of identifying info so-very-neatly removed. It was so fast and easy I still had time to make Man-Batman themed goodie bag toppers, cricut cut some cupcake wrappers, and whip out some Batman themed food labels. Max even insisted that we paint eyebrows and nose lines onto a bunch of plain blue fabric masks we found so everyone at the party could be Man-Batman, whether they knew who he was or not.

I'm linking this up to the Heart 2 Heart Challenges favorite holiday challenge. While I love all holidays, I really try to go all out to make the boys' birthdays special. They get to choose all the food and activities  for their actual birthday day, the theme for their party, and even push all the elevator buttons on that special day. For our brood of boys, it's great to be king for at least one day a year!

If you want to see more of the Man Bat-man themed party goodies, let me know in the comments below. They aren't super fancy with lots of glitter and roses...'cause, you know, he's five...but I think they turned out pretty cute, for party goods focused on a large man who only works in black or very, very dark gray and his holiday themed sidekick. Later on New Year's Eve we'll be back to my regularly scheduled glitter and hearts!