Spiderman - 4 years

For my Son’s 4th birthday party, the theme of choice was obvious: he was a Spiderman fan, through and through.
The invites were the standard Spiderman store-bought ones and the kids enjoyed a couple of themed games such as tangled web, where the kids stand in a circle and those standing opposite one another each hold one end of a length of string. We then played a “twister” type routine which ended up with them getting all tangled up in the string and once they were securely entangled, had to get themselves free again without letting go of their end of string.
The highlight of the party was when each child at the party was presented with their very own Spiderman mask, made by myself in the weeks before hand. I made a basic balaclava style mask and drew spider webs on the masks with a laundry marker.
The party packs had to be bravely retrieved from the mouth of a giant black widow spider which my mother and I paper mached using a mixture of flour and water, a large punching balloon, newspaper and some black paint.

Tanya - DURBANVILLE

Spiderman - 5 years

Okay, so every little boy has to have a Spiderman party sometime! Even if they have never seen a Spiderman cartoon, thanks to merchandising they know exactly who Spiderman is! Luckily Spiderman is a popular character and getting partyware is hardly ever a problem. To keep costs down I bought plain red and blue balloons and party supplies. The Spiderman theme was brought in by using the Spiderman colours and by adding Spiderman serviettes and goodie bags. Above the party table I made a spider-web pattern using black wool and I tied the balloons to the web. My son had a large Spiderman, and so Spidey was also suspended on the web, above the table. I had just had my second child a week before the party, so preparations were done in advance to minimize last minute panic. The invitations were purchased from a local party shop and the cake was ordered well in advance. I found well-priced pre-packed Spiderman party packs at Game that included a Spiderman mask. I took the party packs apart and added the sweets in with the other goodie bags that I had already prepared. I then put the masks on the back of each child’s chair. The masks looked great, and added to the setting of the Spiderman scene, and of course made the perfect “take-home gift”! Outside, we again “spun” a web of wool and this is where we hung the goodie bags. I had also found very cheap tiny glow-in-the dark spiders which I attached to “webs” in the garden, the children had to look for them and each child could take one home. For additional entertainment we hired a jumping castle, as this is always something that the kids seem to enjoy. To fill the tummies and try to reduce sugar highs, we had finger food in the form of Vienna’s, fish-fingers and oven chips – yummy!

Bernadine - CAPE TOWN