1st Birthday: Dr. Seuss

For my son Josiah's 1st birthday, I had to go all out. I mean, when you're an aspiring wedding and event planner, every party is a portfolio opportunity. Furthermore, after waiting so long for my miracle baby to arrive, I wanted to celebrate with everyone around us, making his party as special as I could possibly make it!

I decided to do a Dr. Seuss themed party, thinking it was more on the creative side since I've never attended one before. After doing a lot of research on this theme, I found it was more common than I originally thought, but the resources were still limited, as most everyone simply copied ideas from each other, repeating many aspects of the party. A lot of my ideas are adapted from these same resources (which I can find for you if you need them), but I tried really hard to portray them in different ways or incorporate my own ideas into the party.

We ended up having 78 people attend. The party was held in our utility company's cafeteria, as it is free to customers and offers an environment which is a bit of a blank slate as well as the amenities of tables, chairs, a kitchen, and courtyard. I was worried there wouldn't be enough room because there weren't as many tables as I planned on having. There were also several other details that didn't pan out in the end, but the overall effect was exactly what I hoped for. Check it out, and feel free to ask any questions.

Invitation: (These were printed out and mounted on red paper, front and back. Since these are just copied and pasted, they aren't the print quality.)

Guest Tables:
I had 12 guest tables, each themed on a particular Dr. Seuss book. Eight of them were rectangle tables that sat 6 people each. The other 4 were square tables that sat 4 people each. On 8 of these tables (not just the rectangle ones), I had a hand-made centerpiece, as a type of diorama for each story, along with a stuffed animal, a book,  and a framed table number. The other 4 tables had a balloon bouquet made with a formula can and decorated with pictures of my son, Josiah, each month in the past year, as well as a book and framed table number. (Click to enlarge pictures)

Balloon Arch:

We made a striped balloon arch to go in the doorway. The ends of the archway each had a crate with Thing 1 or Thing 2 running from it. The table in the middle had a jar for raffle tickets, a candy guessing game, and a book for everyone to write birthday wishes to Josiah.

Games:
We played "Pin the Fish on the Ish Wish Dish" (from One Fish Two Fish) and had a "Green Egg Hunt". For the first game, I took a posterboard and painted a scene from the book. Then I scanned in the fish from the book and printed out multiple copies, writing each child's name on it.

 

(Sophia won! Her hat was ordered online, but she doesn't have it on right.)

I didn't get any pictures of the Green Egg Hunt, but I used leftover Easter eggs (only green ones), filled with candy, and had a good ol' fashioned egg hunt. 

Food/Drinks:

We had an array of food and beverages, all with Seussical names or inspired by Dr. Seuss books. I had labels with everything, too:

• Green Eggs & Ham (deviled eggs dyed green and rolled up ham, Green Eggs and Ham)
• Roast Beast (rolled up roast beef, How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• Who-Pudding (chocolate and vanilla pudding, How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• A Snack with Brown and Black (apples, bananas, and peanut butter sandwiches, Hop on Pop)
• Cheese Trees (cubed cheese on toothpicks in styrofoam cones, Fox in Socks)
• Poodles Eating Noodles (pasta salad, Fox in Socks)
• Hyped-Up, Striped-Up Birthday Parfait (red and white striped parfaits made with jello and whip cream)
• Berry Blue Sky Jello (blue jello and whip cream made to look like a cloudy sky)
• Green Eggs-ellent Cookies (iced sugar cookies, Green Eggs and Ham)
• Star-Bellied Sneetch Snacks (iced sugar cookies, Sneetches)
• Josiah's Non-Stop Fun Pops (cake with cream cheese frosting, rolled into balls and covered in chocolate, on a sucker stick)
• Schlopp with a Cherry on Top (ice cream and cherry)
• Chips from Skipper Zipps Clipper Ship Chip Chop Shop (Fox in Socks)
• Lots of candy, popcorn, goldfish, etc. in jars
• The Last Can of Who-Hash (a decorated can of corn, How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• A Crumb Even Too Small for a Mouse (tiny crumb on a platter, How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• Seuss Juice (kool-aid bottles)
• Pink Ink Yink Drink (pink lemonade, One Fish Two Fish)
• You Ought-er Have Some Water! (just plain ol' water)

We also had Horton, Green Eggs and Ham, and Thing 1 themed cupcakes, along with Josiah's smash cake with was made to look like the cake from The Cat in the Hat. 

Decorations:

For other decor, we cut out pages from duplicate Dr. Seuss books and made buntings to hang around the room. I also painted characters on posterboards and hung them on the windows. I enlarged Josiah's invitation to make a posterboard of it and I made a Happy Birthday banner for him. I decorated one table as a reading center with all of our extra books and a fuzzy blanket, and had coloring pages and crayons on another table. Finally, I used the extra formula cans with Josiah's monthly pictures for balloon bouquets around the room. 

Photo Props:

Finally, the most successful and fun part of the party was having the guests take pictures using the photo props. I painted an old frame from a thrift store to match the party colors. My mom made a Cat in the Hat hat, in adult and child sizes. We had gerbera daisies and a feather boa to top it off. As another photo opportunity, I painted a tri-fold board with Things 1 and 2, leaving the faces cut-out for people to pose with. These were a huge hit and we got great pictures of our guests!

Not everything I worked on made it into the party. There were lots of ideas/adaptations that could be done for your party as well. And I could tell you more details about how I made things or the recipes of the food if you are interested. Overall, the party was a huge success, though, and I'm proud of what we achieved!