It is no secret that one of the things I look forward to most as a Mama is the look on my kid’s faces when their birthday party rolls around. They talk about it all year, about what theme they want and what toys they want, and it makes us just as excited as them for the morning of their party. This year I was challenged a bit outside of my comfort zone… mom confession… I know nothing about Mega Man except that this game has been around since Nintendo. I am not a huge gamer (gasp! I try, but I am just not good at those things!) and I don’t know any of the characters that my 5 year old talks about endlessly. There is also very little out there in the mainstream space to buy for this theme. Needless to say, I was stumped.

I went to Pinterest and only found one or two parties for this on there… so with this post, we will pin one more to help other mega fans plan something fun too! I ended up layering shades of blue, finding a poster on Amazon for 6.88 as my focal point in my backdrop, printing out some google images on photo paper for table decor and cupcake toppers, and finding perler bead patterns for a fun craft too.

I love to layer cheap plastic table clothes for color variation, and I use one glued to a long wooden dowel to hang a backdrop above a buffet table we have in our dining room. You will see all the parties have this… but it makes decorating easy and cleanup even easier. I use command strips to hold it up and hot glue everything to my back drop. It keeps most of this stuff off my walls.

I really enjoy baking, but I have come to realize that when trying to put a party together, a box cake is not a bad thing. One less task to worry and think about and the cost is far less than ordering a cake… even if it comes from a supermarket. I pick up two boxes of cake mix, and three tubs of icing and I pay a third of what it would have cost me. This time my son wanted vanilla cake, and I found vanilla marshmallow icing which everyone was a big fan of!

Funny story about the cake topper… this toy was 11 dollars on Amazon and I expected it to be a bigger toy, but the box cake and it was small so instead of a gift I decided to put it on the cake. After baking the cake, at 11 at night the day before the party I decide to open the box (which only depicts the classic light and dark blue mega man) and find this toy is red and white and comes with a transparent rush. Apparently there were plenty of Amazon reviews that said the colors were wrong and the advertised item was misrepresented but I didn’t read them before I ordered. I spent an hour painting the little guy that night to make sure his colors were right… and my son has been playing with him since. He was so happy to get an actual Mega Man toy. I am going to touch up the paint spots and putting some epoxy on him to preserve him. Moral of the story: read reviews first!

Since I saved on the cake, I splurged a little on a goodie table and ordered a bunch of blue candies from Oh! Nuts. This website has so many cool and retro candies in any color you would like to get, and the quantities are reasonable (and therefor less expensive) than some other online candy retailers. Party city has some candies too, but it is more limited in your candy types.

One last thing I wanted to do to make his birthday extra special was make him a shirt to wear to school to show everyone it was his birthday. He started school one day before, so he couldn’t be home with us all to celebrate together. A custom Mega Man shirt that I ironed on and hand painted turned out really cute, and I overheard him tell his cousin on the phone about how his mommy made it for him. Seeing him beam with pride over something simple made my day!

Here are lots of pictures, some my son took on his own! He wanted to capture everything from his party, and I do think he has a future in photography… enjoy!

Please share some of your most fun party themes with us at Modern Mama Life! We love to hear what you have been working on!