Minion Mania- DIY Birthday Party

For my daughter's first birthday we kept it pretty low key. Just a small cake and immediate family invited to help blow out the candles. But over the past year she has made some really great friends and had some fun times with each of them separately, so I thought her birthday party would be a great moment for them all to have fun together.
She, and so many other toddlers, have been bitten by the Minion Mania bug, and for the past few months everything has been Minions and the Despicable Me movie series. So naturally the theme I went with for her first official birthday party had to be Minions.
Below are  the items I created for the party with the "How - to"s and links to where I purchased the supplies. If you decide to throw your little one a Minions Party I hope you enjoy some of these items as much as we did!

 

Despicable Me Party Mural

Although I'm a designer, my background before design was Fine Art. So for me making a mural was not a difficult task, instead it was a fun endeavor. If you feel this is too much to take on, here is a great link to a poster backdrop that would accomplish something similar to what I did.

The beginning of the painting

Materials:

• Acrylic Paint
• Brushes (preferably cheap synthetic)
• Chalk or Pencil
• Eraser
• MDF good 2 sided Board (1/2" x 4' x 8'  )

When making any painting, I always start with a pencil or chalk drawing to map out how I will layout the design. After that, it's important to do an underpainting, which essentially is just a layout of the proper colors in a block format before going back in with a second coat adding in details etc.

Our guests enjoying the mural and the Minion green screen.

                                                     

My husband and daughter 

The next thing I tackled was the place settings, there were multiple parts to the setting, but the cost was low; I found most of the supplies at the Dollar Store.

Minion Utensil Holder.

I folded the yellow napkin. Then printed the minion eyes from the Minion Eye Template onto mailing labels. I then cut out the image and used that as a sticker to hold the napkin together.
Materials:

• Blue Paper plates and utensils
• Yellow napkins
• Yellow Cups
• Blue and White striped straws (the only item I purchased at Party City)
• Small Water bottles (purchased at the Grocery store)
• Sharpie Marker
• Minion Eye Template
• Minion Party Printables (this was an awesome source and I used almost all the downloadable templates)
• Mailing labels ( 2"x 4") ( 1" x 4")
• Clear Packaging Tape
• Scissors

To make the cups, I cut out circles from the large format mailing labels and added them to the middle of the cups. Then with a sharpie I drew a black line around the cup for the band and traced around the sticker cut out with the sharpie as well. Lastly I drew a black circle in the center of the sticker to create the eyeball.
To create the water bottle label, I printed the label template from the Minion Party Printable download. I cut the labels out. Then I cut a strip of clear packaging tape slightly longer than the label. I stuck the label to the packaging tape (label image down) and then wrapped the label around the water bottles. The longer ends of the packaging tape adhere the label to the bottle and create a protective coating at the same time.

 

Mini Minion Goodie Bags

Materials:

• Mini Yellow Gift Bags (Oriental Trading Company)
• Mailing Labels (1" x 2")
• Cardstock
• Minion Party Printables (See Link above)
• Minion Eye Template
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Yellow String
• Tape

To make these cute little bags I first printed the eye template on the same labels as the napkin stickers and used the same process. After adhering all the eyes to the bags I printed the "Thank You" tags from the Minion Party Printable download onto cardstock and cut each tag out with scissors. I then made one hole at the top of the tag with a hole punch.
I then filled each bag with the party goodies ( bubbles, bouncy balls and custom M&M's). Once the bags were filled I folded them closed and sealed them with clear tape. Next I punched a hole through the top left corner of each of the bags. I cut yellow string pieces measuring about 5 inches and strung the tags onto each string. Once the tags had their strings I looped them into each bag hole and secured them with a piece of clear tape.
Although they weren't a hit at our party; (with so much running around it was hard for them to keep their hats on) I know some kids may appreciate a Minion Helmet:

The hats ready to wear

The hat before I changed the eye area to a 3D element

3D eyes for the Minion Helmets

Materials:

• Plastic Construction Helmets (Oriental Trading Co.)
• Black Duct Tape
• Metallic Duct Tape
• Big Wiggly Eyes
• 2 paper towel rolls
• Scissors
• Glue gun/ glue sticks

To make the helmets I adhered three strips of black duct tape onto the helmet to create a goggle band. I then cut the paper towel roll into 8 rings. I added the wiggly eyes into each of the rings and then covered the paper towel edges and the back of the wiggly eye with the metallic duct tape. After all the goggle bands and "eyes" were made I hot glued the eye to the middle of the helmet ( hold the eye in place for 10 seconds to secure).
Variations of the arts and craft project that I used for the craft party table can be found here.

Our craft table was a hit! The mess shows it :)

And I saved my favorite DIY for last. I made these cute and delicious Minion inspired cupcakes along with a mini Minion cake.

Materials:

• Cupcake Mix
• Whipped Frosting
• Yellow food coloring
• Blue Icing
• Black Icing
• Oreo Cookies
• Chocolate Chips
• Metallic Cupcake Holders
• Mixing bowls
• Spoons
• Knife

I used the recipe from the Betty Crocker site for my Minion cake.
But for the cupcakes I added a chocolate chip to the middle of a Oreo, then topped the frosted cupcakes with them. To finish the look I used black icing and made the goggle bands across each side of the Oreo.