In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. ~ Proverbs 3:6

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Dr. Seuss First Birthday Party for Twins - Part 7 (Party Favors)

Good morning blog readers!  I hope you are having a lovely Sunday.  I'm actually home from church this morning with a sick kiddo.  Daddy took Brother to church, so it is just me and baby number one lounging around in our pajamas and watching cartoons on the couch this morning.  I'm currently enjoying my second cup of coffee and a little blog time, while my little man takes his morning nap.
If you've read my blog this week, you know I've been sharing all sorts of Dr. Seuss fun, regarding our boys' recent birthday celebration.This morning I wanted to share the party favors I used for the boys' first birthday party.  Since this was a family party full of kids and adults, I chose to make Dr. Seuss themed cookies as a little take-away for the party guests.  I saw all sorts of Dr. Seuss cookies online that could be order from bakeries, but they were way too expensive for me.  Some were upwards of $30 a dozen.  I needed over thirty cookies, so that was just not gonna happen!  After buying my dough and my icing, I think I maybe spent $12 on my cookies.  
I could have made them for less if I made everything from scratch.  To simplify my life, I made the cookies the day before the party with store-bought Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix.  I didn't have a round cookie cuter, so I used the top of a cup to cut my cookie dough.  Once the cookies cooled, I used store-bought cookie glaze to make my red and white stripes.  I only needed one pouch of each color for all of  my cookies.  I used black writing gel to make the number one.  What I did not realize, is that unlike the cookie glaze, the writing gel did not dry or harden very well.  Once the cookies were placed in bags, the gel stuck to my bags a little.  If I were to make them again, I would have just used black glaze and cut a very fine tip to make it easier for writing.  Both the gel and the glaze can be found in the in the cake and candy section at Walmart or in craft stores that have cake decorating supplies.
Once the icing on the cookies were dry, I bagged the cookies in individual clear plastic party favor bags I purchased from Hobby Lobby.  I think I paid $2 for 50 bags.  I tied the bags with twine and then around the twine I also tied my party favor tags.

I made the tags myself.  In Microsoft Word, I made a circle using shapes and adjusted it to the size I wanted for my tags.  I then added a text box, formatted it to have no lines and placed it over my circle.  Inside my text box I added the clip art.  I found the Thing One and Thing Two image online when I Googled free Dr. Seuss clip art.  I copied and pasted the image inside my text box.  In the text box I wrote, " Today was good, Today was fun.  Thank you, thank you, everyone!" above the image, and I wrote the birthday boys' names below the image using cosmic sans font.  I copied and pasted the finished circles/party tags until I filled a page, and then I printed several pages.  I then cut out my circles and glued them to red construction paper.  Then I cut the out the circles again using scalloped scissors. Lastly, I whole punched each tag, before tying my finished tags to the bags.  I thought these party favor tags were adorable, and they didn't really cost me anything to make!
I placed my bagged cookies inside a tray I already had, along with a message I made to go with the cookies.  The sign was just an image I found when I Googled free Dr. Seuss clip art.  I copied and pasted it to Microsoft Word and adjusted the size.  Then I made a text box with no lines.  Inside the text box, I wrote my message in Cosmic Sans font.  I placed the text box over the sign and printed the finished sign onto card stock.  I then taped the sign onto one of those red and white paper straws that I used in many of my Dr. Seuss projects.  As I mentioned in a previous post.  The package of red and white straws were found at Walmart in the cake and candy decorating sections.
I chose to set the cookies on the drink table where I knew all of my guests would see them.
Before I end this post about my party favors, I wanted to share that Target had a ton of great Dr. Seuss stuff that would have made great kid party favors in their Dollar Deals section around the time of Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Dr. Seuss' birthday happened to be around the same time I was planning this party.  I bought two of the tote bags and filled them with Dr. Seuss coloring sheets for kids to color during the party. I printed the color pages on my computer. I just Googled free Dr. Seuss printable coloring sheets and a variety of coloring sheets showed up. 

Inside the bags I also had some Dr. Seuss book marks and Dr. Seuss erasers for the kids to take home.  A pack was only a $1, so I bought two packs of erasers and two packs of bookmarks.

The Dr. Seuss tins were also Target Dollar Deal finds, for $3 each.  I filled them with crayons for the kids to use.  After the party, my birthday boys got to keep the tote bags and the tins.

Also, just a side note - Pin the Cat on the Hat would have been my party game of choice if I had enough kids that were big enough to play party games.  Most of the kids were too small to understand how to play a game, so I didn't bother with party games.
The coloring worked out great, and the bags and tins went great with the party.
As you can see, even some of the big kids enjoyed the coloring;)



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