The Decorations

The first thing that people saw as they came to the house was this wreath on the door. It was really easy to make, but it took a LOT of balloons, which means it cost more than I was hoping.  I ended up using over 500 balloons.  Here's a tutorial on how to make them.  My only change was that I put 3 balloons on at a time.

Next up was the front hall.  This will be covered in a separate post as it wasn't really decorated, but it did have some items of note.

The next room with decorations included Truffula Trees (The Lorax) and a pennant banner that I made from The Cat in the Hat.  Before you freak out about me defacing books, these were old duplicate copies of books that I got on Craigslist.  They cost me about 50 cents each.

The Truffula Trees were made using the Martha Stewart pom-pom tutorial and then attached to the closet doors.  They were extremely easy to make!  The trunks are construction paper with marker.  I had thought about having Bennett finger paint the trunks, but I'm glad I went with this instead.

 

Each pennant is about 8" long and 6 " wide at the top.  And all of the pages from the book are included, although I wasn't always consistent about which way the fronts and backs went. After cutting all the pages I then used a zig zag stitch to sew them to a piece of ribbon.

I also had Bennett's Seuss collection out throughout the house.  People enjoyed looking at them and seeing all of the titles that they had never heard of before.  Many people read some of them.  And those who gave Bennett books as a gift were wandering around the house trying to see if we already had the one that they had purchased.  

The books that I had in the front window were books that he wrote using his pen names of Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone.  There also were two that he wrote but that other people illustrated.

In this room we also had a book that I've made for Bennett which includes a photo a day (for the most part) form the last year, as well as a small journaling card talking about what we did that day or any new skills he may have learned.  I had hoped to put all of that info on the blog, in a weekly format, but that obviously never happened.  People enjoyed flipping through the book looking at all of the pictures.  One guest was even surprised that I had included the most recent pictures up through Bennett's actual birthday, 2 days prior.  Thank you, CVS 1 hour photo!

Walking towards the kitchen I had the monthly photos that I took of Bennett with Paddington Bear.  I also found some Cat in the Hat wall clings that I had around the photos.  (With all of the decorations plus things we already had on the walls, I was running out of space!)

 

(This next photo was before I put up the clings, but gives an overall look)

In the kitchen we had more books on the hutch.

 

Over the beverages I had pictures from when we went to the Dr. Seuss Sculpture Garden in Springfield.  Some of the photos include Bennett, and others are just of the sculptures.  This led to multiple discussions of when we went there, why is it there, etc. 

 

(Here's one of the photos.)

 

We then continue on into the dining room.  There were more books in the windows.

We hung one of Bennett's preemie PJs in this room.  How odd to think that these were big on him when he first wore them!

 

I came across a tutorial for Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprints.  I knew I wanted them, but since we didn't own fingerpaints I asked Bennett's daycare if they would make them for us.  So they did!  They also made a Cat hat!  He wasn't really a fan of the hat.  :(

We had another banner in the living room.  This one was Green Eggs and Ham.  Like the other, this one also included all of the pages from the book.

And of course more books!

(Unfortunately he never wore these shoes.  

They were too big and we thought he would be happier without them.)

There also was a slideshow running on the TV.  This was some of my favorite pictures from the past year.  It ended up being a little over 21 minutes long.  But this was also a nice conversation piece, and I think people liked it.

And I think that completes our tour of all the decorations!