Dr. Seuss Party, Part 1 Decor and Food

I have to say,  Bruce and I totally knocked ourselves out to throw Lucy the best Dr. Seuss 4th birthday party that we could and I am pretty proud of the results!  It was a wonderful day for her and hopefully for all her friends that came.

Our kids have LOVED the story The Lorax for a while now and were so excited to go see the movie.  Bruce had a brilliant idea to make his own truffula trees.  With some PVC pipe and spray paint he put these together.  I made the tops out of tissue paper (tutorials widely available). 

Of course, once I got started on them, I just had to make some extras to hang around the dining room.  I used the extra paper to make a super colorful one for the front porch.  These were so easy and cheap to make, I highly recommend them as party decorations for all different types of themes!

 

I printed out some of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes and gussied them up with some fancy paper cutters (Thanks, Lisa!)  and hung them around the dining room for some extra decorations. 

I have to say, I thought the food was the most fun to get creative with.  There are so many great ideas floating about and I was able to use Pinterest to start collecting them (I am still not convinced that Pinterest is better than just using favorites folders, though!)  So, here was our menu...

Hard boiled, of course.  I even nestled an ice pack in the middle of the container to keep them nice and cold. 

Ham Sliders.  They were a little time consuming because they were served hot.  Next time I would stick to cold cuts. 

Blue jello with Swedish fish.  I think the lady at the grocery store thought I was throwing one heck of a UK party (they had the final 4 game that night)  due to my buying enough blue jello to make a hundred jello shots.  It took 7 boxes to make 20 of these cups.  I used one of those puffy paint markers to write on the cups earlier in the week.  I filled the cups half full, allowed it to set for about an hour and a half and then added the fish and the rest of the jello. 

This is not precisely a "Seussism" but who doesn't want to eat rainbow fruit kebabs??  They were all gone at the end of the party!

Popcorn cones.  I picked up scrapbook paper when it was on sale and rolled them into cones, sealing with glue dots.  It was more difficult than I thought to roll rectangles into cones!  :)  I never did well in geometry.  I filled these with kettle corn because I was trying to please little ones, but they would be fun for an adult party with all kinds of different snacks. 

No explanation needed....except...isn't my Grandma's tea set so pretty?  I am always happy when I get the chance to use it.  She loves purple pansies so much, they will forever remind me of her. 

These were so cute, right!!??!!  At least for the first 5 minutes after this photo was taken.  Ah well, they tasted good.  I found clip art that I cut out and used a drop of glue to adhere them to the cupcake liners after they were frosted. 

You can't forget a fun drink for the kiddos...strawberry lemonade.

While the birthday girl wasn't truly decoration, I have to show you her outfit.  I made the skirt, (this tutorial) and it was so fun to do!!!  I borrowed my friend Rhian's idea and used iron on transfer paper to make her (the Lorax) and Griffin's (Yertle the turtle) t-shirts.  They enjoyed that because I let them pick out the images.  Another super easy idea that anyone could do to enhance a party theme! 

So I had to add this last picture.  In all these blogs I read about kids parties, they never mention any failures.  Let's get real people, not everything works out as perfectly in reality as we hope it will.  This was my big fail...the cotton candy turned into hard little pellets by the time we were ready to eat them.  So hey, live and learn, and laugh.