Dr. Seuss Birthday Party

For my youngest daughter's first birthday, I went with a Dr. Seuss theme. It was relatively easy to put together, and not very expensive. Also, since my daughter's birthday is just after Valentine's Day, I found lots of cheap red and white stuff to use for a Cat in the Hat look.

Invitations: You can see some of them taped around the table edge in the above photo. I drew and colored Cat's Hat on cardstock with Sharpies, and then copied it onto more cardstock. Then on the back I printed out the details of the parties. I made extra copies of the hat to use as decorations.

Other decorations: Red and white balloons and tablecloths. I took all of the Dr. Seuss books we had around the house, as well as borrowed some from the library, to place around the house. And I took empty oatmeal canisters, wrapped them in red and white construction paper, making Cat's Hat to use as balloon "anchors".

 

Food: It was a mid-afternoon party, so I kept the food to just a few snack items. We did goldfish, which I served in a round fishbowl. I also drew Cat's fish onto cardstock and taped it to the bowl.

Then I had to have green eggs. For these, I took white chocolate covered pretzels (I used Flipz), filled in the holes with white decorator icing, and then pressed a green m&m into one of the dabs of icing. These were really yummy and didn't last long!

I had a cake for my daughter, in which the bakery used my invitation drawing to put on the cake.

 And for the guests, I made Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes. I made red velvet cupcakes. Iced with white icing. Topped with blue cotton candy.

As a keepsake for my daughter, I picked up Dr. Seuss's Happy Birthday To You book and had all the guests sign inside.

 My favorite part of planning a party is doing the favors for guests. For this party I had 2 favors. The first were sugar cookies that were shaped in the letters of each guest's first name. I then attached the corresponding verse from the ABC book. Big M, Little m...etc.

I also took red and white craft felt, sewed strips of it together, and sewed them around baby food jars. Then I took a heavy wire, and curled an end to make a photo holder. I anchored the wire in the baby jar with hot glue, and glued on a circular disc of felt on top to hide the inside. I used these photo holders to display photos of my daughter, one photo for every month of her first year. When the party was over, I took out the photos and gave the photo holders to the guests.

 And that's it! Dr. Seuss materials are often found in Michael's and teacher supply stores, so there's lots more you can do for this themed party.

Magnet Boards

If you want to make a very easy magnet board, there's a tutorial on this website that's good. It uses a picture frame, which makes many of the difficult steps in my boards obsolete. Since I was making a lot of boards, buying that many frames wasn't an option.


So I started out by going to Lowes. In the plumbing section, I found joist panning, which was under $7 a sheet. (If you say you're looking for flashing, and get sent to roofing, you're going to be paying a lot more). This sheet was 16" by 36".

The size of this sheet let me make six 8" by 11" boards. I marked the panning with a sharpie, and then cut with metal snips. PLEASE WEAR GLOVES when cutting this stuff. The edges are sharp and will cut your hand up nicely if you aren't careful.

Since this stuff is thin and sharp, and I wasn't putting it into a frame, I took needle-nose pliers and folded down the corners.

Here's an 8x11 board. I then marked a dot near the top at 3" and 8" where my husband would drill holes for ribbon hangers I would add later.

 Here my wonderful husband has drilled the holes for me. If you're using a frame, you can completely skip the drilling as you can add your hanger to the frame.

Since I'm not using a frame, I didn't want to use hot glue (which is my usual craft go-to necessity). Instead I used a spray adhesive. It helped me get a more finished look, and I didn't have to iron the fabric. Warning: this stuff is VERY sticky, and the fumes are harsh. I would pick up a few $1 tablecloths from the dollar store and a couple pairs of dishwashing gloves to protect your furniture and your hands. And work in a well ventilated place (outside preferably).

Spray the entire surface of the panning, then lay your fabric over it and smooth it out with your hands. A note about fabric: light and thin linen work well. You don't want something too thick because it makes it harder for the magnets to stick. Also, random patterns mean you don't have to have your fabric lined up perfectly, unlike linear patterns. Cut your fabric so that you have an inch or two overhang around your panning.

 Next, spray the corners of the flashing, and then fold down the corners of fabric and press to stick.

 

Next, spray along the outer edge of the panning, and fold down the fabric, pressing so it adheres.

 

 

Since I was handing these out as gifts, I wanted the back to look finished as well. I had some leftover felt from a previous project and decided to use it. I cut the felt out slightly larger than the board.   I sprayed the entire back with the adhesive and pressed on the felt. Then I used scissors to trim the felt overhang.

 I added ribbon, feeding it through the drilled holes and knotting it.

I finished by making some bottle cap magnets, and they were ready to give away!

Footprint Crafts

I love handprint and footprint crafts. They're probably my favorite. We went to Busch Gardens in VA this summer, and there was a booth that turned children's handprints into cool animals. I loved the idea so much that I came home, hopped on google, and got some ideas of my own.

Our first one was this frog which we used for invitations to my daughter's birthday party.

Doing the frog was so much fun, and it turned out so well, that we spent an afternoon doing the next four.

This tutu is a personal favorite, mainly because my daughter just started dance.

For all of these, I used white card stock, tempura paint, and a foam brush. For the tutu, I cut out the leotard from pink construction paper, glued it to white card stock, did the handprints, and then glued a pink bow at the top of the skirt.

We'll take these to Staples to have copied onto card stock to make mini thank you cards.

A New Blog

I'm making a new home here for the crafts I do and recipes I test. Hope to share some fun ideas!