“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

-Dr. Seuss

One of the greatest joys in my life is my friends’ children.  Maybe it’s something in the water, but let me tell you; my friends have cute kids.

You know what I’m talking about… the impossible not to love, heart melting, greatest thing on earth kind of cute.

One of the best parts about coming home to Texas this summer has been to see how much they’ve grown while I’ve been gone, and to be able to spend some time with all of them.

In addition to that, one of my closest friends has a little one on the way!  Baby Nolan, who just so happens to be due on my birthday, September 20th to be exact.

Amanda decided to decorate Nolan’s nursery in a bit of a non-traditional theme, inspired by all things Dr. Seuss!

Using paintings done by a very talented friend, and decals she ordered online, Amanda turned the nursery into a Dr. Seuss Wonderland.

So of course, when putting together Amanda’s shower, the other hostesses and I decided a Dr. Seuss theme was a no-brainer.

This theme was a little different than your traditional baby shower… It was out with the pastel colors and baby blues, in with the crazy colors and vibrant hues (look at me, I’m even starting to sound like Dr. Seuss).

While I’d never heard of a Dr. Seuss shower being done before, leave it to Pinterest, Etsy, and of course my fellow bloggers  to have already blazed a trail.

Using ideas we found online and some inspired ideas of our own, here is the step by step rundown of our Dr. Seuss Baby Shower:

Invitations

Aren’t they precious?? These were done by a great company called The Belle Creations.  They let you customize their design, put it all together in a PDF, then send it to you for printing.

The great thing about this is you can print the exact amount that you need, and you always have the PDF for reprints should an invitation get lost, or you have a last minute addition to your guest list.

Decorations

Because it isn’t a terribly popular theme, one of the biggest challenges we faced was the lack of decorations available to order.  While I found a few things on Etsy and Ebay, most of the decorations for the shower were hand made.

1. Truffula Trees- One of the main things I think about when I think Dr. Seuss are the Truffula Trees in the book, The Lorax.  They’re colorful, fun, and most of all easy to make.

Using tissue paper and rubber bands, I followed Martha Stewart’s Tissue Pom Pom Tutorial (doubling the amount of tissue she used), then attached the pom poms to styrofoam pool noodles bought at the dollar store.  Put them in a colorful sand bucket in groups of three, and you’ve got yourself some Truffula Trees.

2. Banner-  All of the Baby Shower banners I found online were not in the color scheme I wanted, so I decided to venture out to Michael’s Craft Store in search of inspiration.

I ended up with a package of bright colored scrapbook paper, a set of flower shaped dicuts, a black marker, some ribbon and a glue stick.  Put them all together and you have an adorable, and inexpensive banner.

3. Onesie Banner- This is a great decoration that mom can use after the shower.  I ordered these onesie tie stickers from Kayla through her Etsy Store.  I put them on the onesies and hung them all on a clothesline for a great over the door decoration.

4. Books!- The easiest and best decoration for a Dr. Seuss Shower… Dr. Seuss Books!  Put them here, put them there, put them everywhere!  They add color and fun, and spark conversation with guests reminiscing about their Dr. Seuss memories.

5. Diaper Cake-  This is my absolute favorite part of any baby shower… the Diaper Cake!   It also doubles as a great party decoration.  In case you’ve never made one, here’s a great tutorial.

My tips: Use sewing pins with colorful ends to add color and secure ribbons or decorations to the cake.  Also, use a pizza pan for the base- it’s cheaper then a cake stand and sturdier too.

Third, if you use two bottles stacked on top of each other for the center of the cake and build your layers around them, you can stack the layers on top of each other and include another useful item for your mommy-to-be.

Food

Now we get to the good stuff… THE FOOD.

A great thing about this theme is that you’ll never run out of Dr. Seuss inspired food to serve.  Here is what was on our menu:

• Green Eggs and Ham (deviled eggs with green food coloring and rolls of ham lunch meat)
• Hop on Pop Popcorn (Kettle Corn)
• Yertle’s Turtles (pretzels, topped with rolos and glazed pecans)
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Jello Dish (blue jello with Swedish Fish candy)
• Brown Bar Ba Loot’s Truffula Fruits  (strawberry, pineapple, orange and grape skewers)
• Three Decker Sauerkraut and Toadstool Sandwiches (cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches)
• Dog in a Log (pigs in a blanket)
• Oodles of Noodles (pasta salad)
• Cheese Trees (cream cheese and jalapeno jelly)
• Skipper Zip’s Chips (potato chips and dip)
• Biggle Balls (vegetarian meatballs)
• Moose Juice (blue punch)

Our only food flop was the One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Jello Dish.  Someone… okay that someone is me… forgot to put the jello in on time so someone thought it was a good idea to put it in the freezer.

Let’s just say we ended up with a No Fish Frozen Jello Dish.  If you want to try this at your shower, I recommend making it the night before!

For dessert, I used a great idea for Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes from my friends at Design Dazzle.

I love this idea- just a simple cupcake with vanilla frosting and cotton candy as the “hair”

One thing I would have done differently is to assemble these right before the shower started.   By the time everyone got there, these had been out several hours, which made the cotton candy disintegrate slightly, so the cupcakes weren’t as fluffy as I had hoped.  That’s something to keep in mind when making these!

Shrunken cotton candy or not, they still tasted great

Favors

For party favors, we kept it simple; a candy bar!

I picked out some colorful candy from the party store, put it in clear bowls and mason jars, and added some water bottles with personalized labels that I ordered from The Party Mom on Ebay.

Do those flowers look familiar?  I used the extra dicuts from my banner to add a pop of color.  Simple, inexpensive, and oh so sweet.

All in all, the shower was a truly fun celebration for Baby Nolan.  Having a theme that’s unique can be difficult, but it’s also an opportunity to come up with new and creative ideas, and making your own decorations can save you a ton of money in the end.

Now that the shower is over, we’re all counting down the days till we get to meet the little guy.

Until next time,

Happy Baking!

~Sweet Charity~