A Curious George Party

A few months before my daughter’s birthday party, I asked her what kind of theme she wanted. She was (and still is) obsessing over two characters: Barney and Curious George. However, no offense to Barney, but I cannot stand that purple dinosaur. So…Curious George it was. If you are a DIY type of person and want to make some of the items below, I linked directly to where I purchased the tools to make the items.

The invitation:

I made two types of party favors: one for younger kids and one for older kids. Each younger child received a Curious George book and a personalized bookmark. I also added some Curious George bubbles and dollar play packs. The bookmark was designed in Photoshop and laminated at home. I decided on this favor because: 1) it was cheap- favors came out to $2/person for just the book and bookmark and 2) it’s educational 😉

For older kids, I thought about favors that would work great for both boys and girls. And, more importantly, be something useful- not some kind of throw away favor. I found some magnetic dry erase boards that sold for $2 – $3 (Target and Toys R Us online), and then I used my Silhouette Cameo to personalize the board and magnets. It was a total hit with the kids (and some adults who wished I made these favors for them as well)!

Speaking of adult favors…since the majority of our guests came from out-of-state, I liked the idea of sending everyone home with something. Both adults and kids left with a cake push pop (or cake shooter). I first came across these while walking around midtown in NYC, where a colleague and I stopped into Crumbs bakery after a meeting. I noticed a row of cake push pops at the register and just had to buy one. It reminded me of push pop candy from the 80s, yet it was the neatest way to eat cake and walk around NYC without making a mess! Ingenious! I bought a bunch of push pop containers online and used one of my circle cookie cutters to alternate cake and frosting.

A note for those who are interested in making these: a 9×13 sheet of cake will make enough cake rounds to fit 7 cake push pops. Each cake round was 1/2-inch thick. If a cake was baked too thick, I would slice the rounds in half. The final result:

The birthday girl requested I make her a cupcake tree like I did for her brother’s last birthday. I kept the decorations a little easier this time since making the cake push pops was a little more labor intensive.  The cupcake tree below has chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting and vanilla bean cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Each cupcake had fondant balloon decorations on top, since we all know how much Curious George likes balloons.

The cake on top was half vanilla bean and half chocolate with salted caramel filling all covered in chocolate ganache. To make Curious George sit on a pile of bananas on top of the cake, I took leftover frosting and put a big glob on the top and covered it in banana runts.

We also played a pin-the-tail type game and had a piñata.

I did not do too much in terms of decorations this year other than blowing up a bunch of Curious George balloons. But, I still made her a banner as I do every year. Did I mention I love my Silhouette Cameo for making this stuff?

All in all, the birthday girl was quite happy. The Curious George party was a success!