Our DIY Sock Monkey Party - Food & Fun Stuff

I'm pretty sure this one is going to turn out to be pretty long. I'm going to tackle all things on the goodies table! We thought long and hard about getting just the right amount of sweets and non-sweets, all while still getting everything to go along with the brown, red and blue theme as closely as possible.

First things first...

 On the "menu"

• grapes in fruit dip
• sausage dip & chips
• seasoned crackers
• Twizzlers
• Tootsie Rolls
• Tootsie Roll pops
• Oreo pops
• cupcakes
• pigs in a blanket
• Coca-Cola in glass bottles
• "monkey juice" which was just homemade cherry limeade
• water with lemons
• cupcakes!

A lot? Sure! But we had a lot of people to feed. We did the friend party on Saturday and family on Sunday. Trust me when I say... my family knows how to eat. :)

Tana is mainly the mastermind behind setting tables and food up. She sees the height and what not of what looks best where. I just add my opinion/approval and occasional suggestion here and there. :)

Saturday's table set up

We used our tiny kitchen table and a card table. We just covered them up with cheapo table cloths. Nearly all the dishes and serving pieces are Tana's or something she borrowed from her grandma (she's actually her Gigi, it sounds weird to call her "grandma" lol). I got the colored forks and spoons from a party store in Tulsa. If you buy the colored ones from Walmart, you have to also buy the knives... I don't need the knives... I don't want the knives. I would have had to buy a bunch from Walmart to get as many as I got at the party store. They are just sitting in a little vase I bought for $1 at the Dollar Tree (where everything's $1!!) The brown plates and the napkins are also from the party store. The red plates... are Hefty plates that I bought at Walmart a long time ago when I first started planning for the party. Funny story on the napkins... I was doing every single napkin, every other one red, brown, red, brown, etc. Tana grabbed a stack and put them in chunks of red, brown, red, brown. LOL! SO much cuter and soooo much easier! The ribbons tied around each different dish, I got that idea from this.

I think ours actually turned out cuter than these!

SO cute!! What great colors this would be for a summer party!

I even took their "monkey vines" and "monkey juice" ideas from the top picture. Ours are way cuter, dontcha think?! We just wrapped the ribbon around how we wanted it, taped it on, and then carefully (as to not move the ribbon!) taped on the food label.

Aren't those labels cute?! Tana whipped those up in a jiffy, no problem! :) And the ribbon adds such a CUTE detail. Oh, and by the way, that sock monkey jack-in-the-box that normally sells at Target for $15... yeah, i got that at the Goodwill for $3 in perfect condition. That's right! Underneath him is a leftover foam block to give him a little height.

You might like to know... we totally rigged up this "punch bowl" here. It is a cake lid stuck inside of a little circle vase/bowl thing I purchased for $1 at Dollar Tree. And that fancy ladle there, lol, courtesy of the kitchen of yours truly. That was one detail I forgot completely about. Oh, well... saved me more money than if I had I thought about it! And that is Tana's glass pitcher... may she rest in peace... she was so pretty. Tana broke her by accident. :(

The cupcakes are a tragedy turned good, in and of themselves. I terrible thing happened with the cake mixes that never rose. I had made several batches prior to party day. I had perfected them down to an art. The day of I made FOUR batches and not one cupcake turned out right. Walmart had these cupcakes, minus the sprinkles, sitting out waiting on me t-minus one hour to the party. We sprinkled them with brown, red, and white sprinkles and stuck my home-made-with-love cupcake toppers on top.

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing... yum!

This is Gigi's cupcake stand. I yike it.

Ok, these toppers were made using a circle cutter. I used 3 different colors of card stock for the backs of them, and then Tana made the monkey, "Jake" and "1" circles. Then I put them on lollipop sticks. Perfect! And very personalized! They turned out ridiculously cute, if I do say so, myself.

The Tootsie Roll pops and Oreo pops needed to be stuck into something so they stood upright and showed off their cuteness instead of being all stacked together and boring. I saw some foam blocks wrapped in wrapping paper on some blogs. They were so cute! Tana saw a roll of brown paper that Derick actually uses when painting in the house one day and we both thought it would look so cute to wrap Jake's presents in it. I didn't end up doing that, but we DID use it on the foam blocks and they were CUTE!!

where I got the idea of a wrapped foam block to stick our stuff in.

This is Pioneer Woman's cake pops... Tana, yours are WAYYYYY better. No offense to Mrs. Drummonds, but I am sure you all will agree that the pops look a lot better standing up.

Too cute, right? I got that red twine stuff at Michael's in a roll, and I pretty much love it. I just asked Derick about the paper, he said it came from Lowe's. I have never checked into it, but I'm sure you can find it elsewhere too. Idk about the price, or anything, either. It was just a "lying around the house" kind of thing.

These took FOREVER for Tana to make and she did excellent! It was a very long, very tedious learning experience and there were a ton of mess ups to get all these beauties, but that just meant more for us to enjoy! ;)

Our cute little Tootsie Pop stand.

I'm pretty sure I'll blog about the delicious recipes for the sausage dip, seasoned crackers, Oreo balls and grapes in fruit dip, at some point. Because everyone needs these things in their house at one point, or another!

I think that pretty much covers the food table.

I have gotten positive feedback from several different people about this little "series", if you will, that I'm doing on DIY partying. I can not wait to see photos of your kiddos' parties!!