Cook It, Clean It, Make It Fun: Dr. Seuss Birthday Party w/ Free Printables

As most of you know by now, my two youngest children are one year and 18 days apart. Throwing two birthday parties within weeks of each other would be way too much stress and expense for our family, so we planned on throwing one party for both kids. Now just to pick a theme that would work for both kids. Since we would be having a party for one boy and one girl, the theme had to be something gender neutral. With our munchkins, thing 1 and thing 2 seemed like the perfect fit.

Now that I had a theme, I had to get busy doing research....pinterest...google....you name it. Slowly, I started forming ideas for the party. I'm going to start out with an overal spread of the party...then break it down into seperate ideas/projects for you. So many of the places I looked had pictures, but no instructions...sigh...so frustrating. I don't want y'all to go through that.

Here is a look at the party...

Now let's break it down...

The food was planned to fit the Dr. Seuss theme:

Green Eggs & Ham (green filled devilled eggs; ham and cheese sliders) recipes here!
Truffula Trunks (pretzel sticks)
Three Cheese Trees (literally three stacks of cheese looking like Christmas trees)
Hop on Pop-Corn (popcorn, duh)
Cat's Hat Cabobs (strawberry and marshmallow kabobs)
Pink Ink Yink Drink (pink lemonade)
Fish in a Bowl (literally swedish fish...in a bowl)
Thing 1 & Thing 2 Cupcakes
Icecream...no awesome name...icecream is awesome enough

Green Devilled Eggs

Ham Sliders

Truffula Trunks

Cheese Trees

Cat's Hat Kabobs

Hop on Pop Corn

Fish in a Pot

Pink Ink Yink Drink

Had to slip in a picture of Silas Sneaking Snacks

The food table projects and decorations:

I took clear forks (I have a huge box from Sam's Club) and wrapped them in red with white dots napkins I picked up at Target. Then I added a piece of turquoise curling ribbon held together with a glue dot and topped with a circle punch out Seuss picture from my free printables here.

I also printed out the food cards from the same document and placed them in some place card holders that I already had around the house.

For the truffula trees in the truffula tree trunk dish I actually just picked up some twisted neon colored pipe cleaners from the kids craft section of Walmart and a few foofy hair clips from the crafts section. I twisted a couple of the pipe cleaners together and clipped the hair clips on the top, then just stuck them into the pretzel sticks once I dumped them.

The appetizer picks used to pick up the cheese were actually not DIY...I picked them up from the wedding/party aisle at Walmart.

I printed out water bottle wraps from wanessacarolinacreations.blogspot.com and taped them onto the water bottles. They fit PERFECTLY on Sam's Club water bottles.

Projects for the treats and sweets Table:

I made these tissue paper poms earlier last week. The tutorial can be found on last Wednesday's post here.

These were originally intended to hang from the ceiling...but we couldn't get them to stay hanging, so they found their home resting on the sweets and treats table.

I also made this really cute popcorn cone holder.

I bought a piece of florists foam in block form (green...from the floral crafts section). It was actually cheaper to buy the florist foam than it was to have bought a white styrofoam block. The florist foam is also a better texture for this project.

I wrapped it in red wrapping paper and but a strip of turquoise ribbon around that.

I then took 24 Wilton lollypop sticks and stuck into the block in a grid pattern....you could also do this randomly...it would be just as cute.

Once I did that, I cut out wedge shapes from scrapbook paper. (I fit 4 wedge shapes onto a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper) Then I wrapped the wedges into cones and secured them with staples, leaving a hole at the bottom just big enough to fit onto the lollypop sticks.

I stuck the cones down onto the sticks and then filled them with popcorn. This worked out great, because I made plenty of extra cones. When people slid the cones off of the sticks, I could easily replace the cone and fill with more popcorn.

The table covering was super simple. I just took a red table cloth and draped it with half of a turquoise table cloth.

The cupcakes were made my my husband's cousin. She has been doing cakes for our kids' parties for two years now. She is fabulous. She made us come confetti cupcakes with blue icing nestled in red cups so that they resembled thing 1 and thing 2. I used some more of the thing 1 and thing 2 punchouts from my printables on the fronts of the cupcakes to dress them up a bit.

I put the favors on the sweets and treats table every year. This year I wanted to stay away from any massive quantities of candy or noisy toys. I actually picked up some Seuss books and printed out bookmarks, also from wanessacarolinacreations.blogspot.com. I just popped the bookmarks into the books...boom...favors. These were actually a hit.

Photo Booth Project:

I wanted to give my guests a way to have fun while getting pictures of the guests that were fun and cute. I hate getting caught in those awkward room scan pictures. This is way more fun.

I picked up a red and white striped shower curtain from Target and some feather boas from Michael's. I added a penant banner (print and make your own here). Then I grabbed a turquoise milk crate (Dollar Store, already had for toy storage in my daughter's room), a couple of Seussical stuffed animals, and a borrowed Thing afro cap. I threw the feather boas and other props into a the crate. I also grabbed a photo frame at Target and some turquoise spray paint from Walmart. I spray painted the frame turquoise and saved the mat for guests to sign with a Sharpie. Later, I will put a pic of the kids inside the frame.

Here is what the backdrop looked like.

And here are a few of the pictures of guests having fun playing with the props. I only included adults here, but some of the kid pics were adorable too.

The gift table was just a card table tucked into the corner with the same table dressing as the sweets and treats table.

I also threw a birthday banner onto the wall behind where the babies were set up to demolish their smash cakes. You can print your own here.

Overall, I was super excited about how things turned out. We had a blast with family and friends that day. Now sit back and enjoy a couple of pics of the kiddos.