Description
Since I really wanted a Seuss themed nursery for our son, and it didn't work out, I was determined to use it for his first birthday. He has loved having the Seuss books read to him more than any other since he was tiny so we knew this was perfect. I love planning parties, and I wanted Ezra's to be extra special and have more personal touches than your average first birthday. Due to my husband's insistence I also did this on a pretty reasonable budget as well by ordering lots of printables from etsy.com, using wrapping paper and ribbon to decorate old formula cans and adding foam balls to hold up the chocolate lollipops and marshmellow cat hats I made, and making the cupcakes myself.
Design Inspiration
I searched Dr. Seuss parties like crazy on google images and read more about the pictures that stood out the most. From doing that I got a lot of my own ideas like the formula cans
Decorating Style
DIY with lots of personal touches
Project Details
I ordered molds online from ebay to make my own chocolate lollipops that were both cute and delicious, then I took old formula cans put foam balls inside and wrapped them with wrapping paper and ribbon and cut out party circles from etsy.com to hold them. Since I made 2 extra I also stacked and rolled out marshmellows on lollipo sticks and painted them with red gel food coloring to make cat hats and then filled the rest of the container out with bright red strawberries. My mom was put in charge of making green deviled eggs which went super fast, and my husband rolled deli ham on toothpicks to give us plates of green eggs and ham. He also made a great pasta salad for poodles eating noodles from Fox in Sox. I printed pictures of characters from the book and pictures of the book that each dish came from to explain to those guests who were less familiar with my son's favorite type of literature. Since we live 4 hours away away from our family and friends who were our party guests and they don't get to see our little man often I also made sure I used all of his month by month photos on his invitations which were designed from rcwillia2 on etsy.com. A seller called goldrings was responsible for the adorable party circles and water bottle lables at a great price. I also wanted to make sure we were dressed the part so since Dr. Seuss maternity shirts are pretty impossible to find I ordered an iron on for the belly of my shirt that read "Thing 2 coming soon" that perfectly covered my little baby bump of a daughter from LoveForTwo, and an appliqued Dr. Seuss 1 shirt with my son's name from Stitchesfromthesouth both on etsy.com. Warning my son's shirt was TINY! He was wearing a 9 month size at the time, I ordered a 12 month, she sent an 18 month and it was still really small. The party hats were purchased at Michael's and were a great shot of color and went with our theme much better than plain party hats. We also hired TMK photography which is done by a friend of mine to take all of our party pictures which was a huge help because I didn't get a chance to take any myself and now we have great photos for my son to look back on and see how we celebrated his first year
Favorite Items
I think I was most happy with the sippy cups that I wrapped with water bottle lables for our littlest guests becuase it was something that I haven't seen anyone else do, and it seemed like it served a basic purpose to me. They were really helpful for parents who didn't bring them for their children and they also made nice take home favors that will actually be used later too . I think our guests most enjoyed the chocolate Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and 2, and fish lollipops that I learned to make online after ordering a mold from Ebay. The Happy Birthday To You book was something else I was really happy with, we brought red and blue pens and had all our guests sign it for a keepsake my son can look back at later
Advice
Use lots of solid colors and printables like those I bought on etsy.com. They are just enough little personal touches and the solid colors give consistency that tie everything together well. Also hire a photographer, otherwise, all the effort was for nothing because your child will never remember it without the pictures
Ysczabel
Monday 12th of September 2011
Dr. Seuss is one of the most loved birthday party themes for children. It should be, with all the bright blue & red colors and the details from the books. Nice job!