And monster makes three. I mean 12.

• By Alison
• 21 March, 2010
• 11 Comments

Last week was one of those weeks that hit all of us at some point in time, where the calendar has a major clash, and too many things end up happening at once.

If my Sandra Boyton calendar was a computer, it would have crashed. The blue screen of death/spinning rainbow of death (see, I am bicomputerlingual) would have been hanging on the wall of my kitchen glaring balefully at me with that accusatory “You MADE this happen” tone of voice.

The big event of the week was Miss Comic Relief’s 6th birthday, which was on Friday – with a party for 12 on Saturday. That was the priority event of course.

Add to that a stint in town working for one of my clients for two days, and then one day working for them from home. I don’t often work on location. I hate the wasted travel time, and the afterschool pickup fiasco’s that it leads to. But I don’t like to say no to my favourite clients either, especially not when they need me (and plan to pay me).

And top the whole thing off with a big dollop of book week dress up for Friday. 

It’s now Sunday, so I am thankfully looking back on last week, the memories fading into scars that I almost can’t see.

The biggest problem with the overloaded week was the fact that we’d decided to have a make-a-monster party for Miss Comic Relief’s party. She had wanted a Build-a-Bear party, after attending one for a friend, but as you know, my thoughts on that are dubious at best. So I suggested that we do something at home. We came up with the idea of making monsters. And so that’s what we did.

Or more correctly – that’s what I did.

How I managed to suggest doing a party that meant SO much more work for me, I am not quite sure. Some lovely Build-a-Bears would have been so much less time intensive!

The nights leading up to the party were spent in preparation – I had to make 14 monster bodies, eyes and mouths, and matching bags for the party goers to put together. Because I was working in town, I wasn’t able to start sewing until about 8.30pm, and then I sat and stitched until well past midnight.

Every single one I stitched up would prompt both girls to squeal with glee, and the birthday girl declared that THIS one was her favourite, and the one that she wanted to make on the day. By the time we actually got to the day, she had no idea which one she wanted.

On the day I was still sewing bits here and there – a quick trip to West Wickham to get some bias binding for the bags was needed, and then I had to send Mr Boxer Shorts back there a second time to pick up wadding and glue when I discovered that I had not enough of the former, and the latter was dried and solid.

The floor of the dining room was covered in tiny triangles from clipping out the curves. Who’d have thought they’d one day hear me say “I need a notch clipper!”. By the way, do they exist? I really DO want one!

The plan on the day was simple, get them all to choose a monster, then divide them into two groups of six. Start gluing with one group, while the other group played musical bumps and other games with my two 8 year old helpers (Miss Trouble Pants and her friend Miss Frenchy).

When the first group finished gluing, they swapped over and we did the second group. The monsters were starting to take shape, and looking really good. We lined them up to dry, and served party tea in the back room on the floor.

Once the last jam sandwich had been stepped on, and the strawberries devoured by hordes, we sat down in a circle to stuff the monsters. This bit was apparently the most enjoyable! Armed with wooden spoons and chopsticks, they stuffed the wadding into the ears and horns of their monsters, and also pushed in brown and red pom poms, which were “monster guts”. When they’d all finished, we left them dancing to a mixture of ABBA and pink in the back room, while Miss Frenchy’s mother and I stitched their bottoms up and touched up the gluing.

When they were all ready to go I put the cake and some chocolates into the matching bags, then lined them all up for the photo you can see at the top of this page. They looked fantastic! And the girls all loved them. They were eagerly showing them off to the various parents who came to collect them. I had to issue some “re-gluing” warnings as they left, but on the whole I think they’ll all manage to survive.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the matching monster cake! He was only wearing pants because he had an unfortunate bottom incident while I was making him. Cake making is not my forte! But edible glitter makes all things gorgeous, and so I got away with some shoddy cake decoration this time!

We ushered the guests out the door, but still had two monsters to make. Miss Trouble Pants and Miss Frenchy now got to make their own monsters, having been super helpers (apart from some sibling squabbling). So all in all, there were 14 monsters born in our house yesterday. That’s probably a “monsters dozen”.

Thank goodness birthday’s only come once a year. I’m off for a nap now.