Here’s a quick summary of the recent Superhero-related posts:

• Superman and Batman Costumes
• Superhero Birthday Party
• DIY Superhero capes

The passions of a toddler are as fleeting as they are deep. At the time of last year’s party, I was convinced little J was going to grow up to become a firefighter, and he still is mesmerized by those trucks, but his current obsession is with superheroes, especially Superman. This theme for the party worked out, since J’s birthday falls a few weeks before Halloween, and J and L wanted to dress as Superman and Batman to go trick-or-treating.

To set the theme, our family dressed in costume, and we invited our guests to do the same. I had extra capes for all the little ones to wear at the party and take home as party favors.

Besides the superhero capes I sewed for our little guests to wear, I also had a photo backdrop. The backdrop is made from a blue queen-sized flat sheet with a black skyline appliqued to the bottom. Most of the skyline is random buildings – I actually cut two skylines at once to be efficient (pictured below).

To customize the skyline, I added the Transamerica pyramid and Coit Tower. Up in the sky, I sewed some clouds, and ta-da!

We used the photo backdrop two ways – hung up for action poses and, later in the party, laid out on the floor for some “flying” scenes. I tried to set up the photo booth I created for our Mad Men party, but the pictures didn’t turn out that well outside. If I had had more time, I wanted to re-decorate it as a telephone booth, to fit with our Clark Kent-Superman theme. That would be so cool, I want to throw another superhero party just to do it!

The fun comic word photo props added a lot of excitement to the photos. I bought the downloadable images from Etsy – there are lots of options. I printed mine out, mounted them on adhesive craft foam, and glued large craft sticks to the back to make handles (pictured below).

It took a while for the kids to figure out how to do the flying scenes, but then they started having fun with it.

Another cool photo prop for our little superheroes was this fake barbell, made from a paper towel roll, bubble wrap, and duct tape.  I couldn’t decide which of these heroic expressions I loved the most, so I posted them all.

I thought it would be clever to have the kids toss balls to knock over this “kryptonite” made from empty green plastic bottles, but I admit this one went over the head of the three-year-old crowd.

Inside our house, I customized our birthday banner, but it didn’t feel quite festive enough, until I hung up some of the birthday pictures that L drew for his little brother J.

These drink wraps were also purchased on Etsy.

Finally, the cake… I found this Superman cake topper in one of our toy boxes. I have no idea where it came from, but I washed it up, and it worked out perfectly!

And so, another fun year has flown by!

“Jewels”