Sesame Street proved to be a fun and easy theme for Benjamin’s first birthday.  We had the party at my parents’ house (thank-you, Mom and Dad!) due to weather and the size of our family.  It was a perfect place for everyone to get together and celebrate the birthday boy!

For the party, I made the cupcakes, Elmo and Cookie Monster tissue paper pom-poms, a tee-pee, gift bags and Benjamin’s t-shirt.  Since things are pretty busy around here, I decided rather than go totally nuts with Sesame Street things, I’d carry the theme through with color and keep it simple.  I stuck with primary colors — red, yellow and blue — for the balloons, cups, paper products, streamers and gift bags.  The decorations were not intrusive, but added a festive feel.

The cupcakes were a big hit.  I found the idea just by googling Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes and searching a bunch of images.  Sadly, I cannot credit one place for what I did.  The eyes are a bit small to me, but honestly, I had two sick kids that I had to run to the doctor the day before the party and not having to make the eyes myself was worth the sacrifice of perfect googly-looking eyes.  My original plan was to make Benjamin a smash cake to look like the Cookie Monster cupcakes, but since he really doesn’t like cake, nor does he want to touch it, I opted to skip that part.  Good thing, since the cupcake we gave him ended up on the ground.

The Cookie Monster cupcakes were my favorite... I love the little cookies and crumbs!

The Elmo and Cookie Monster poms were based on Martha’s tissue paper pom-poms .  I just had the wild idea of putting faces on them.  Elmo looks a little strange in these pictures, a little Big Bird-like, as Scott said.  His face kept wanting to fall off, poor fella.  Cookie was cuter.

A Big-Bird lookin' puffy Elmo.

Happy Cookie Monster

The tee-pee was based on this tutorial.  The directions were easy to follow and the tent turned out cute.  What I did not bank on was the fact that a one-year-old and a three-year-old do not understand that the walls of a tent are not to be leaned against.  We had a near-miss as Ella accidentally pushed it over just about on Ben’s head.  It is in the basement until further notice.  Maybe setting it up on grass rather than wood floors will help.

The tee-pee. They love it, but it will require a lot of supervision for a while.

The gift bags were just my way of keeping things simple.  I mysteriously obtained some die-cut letters in each child’s first initial and glued them onto paper sacks.  The older and younger kids had slightly different versions, but they all had bubbles, Sesame Street books, crayons, Sesame Street stickers (older kids) and noise makers (yes, I am *that* mom, but in my defense, the party was held outdoors on almost an acre of land).  Thank you to Target’s Dollar Spot for the perfectly-timed Sesame Street items!

Gift bags for our guests.

Benjamin’s shirt is a simple applique using fusible web.  I made the star, grabbed some fabric I had laying around and ironed it right on the shirt.  For a little added detail, I hand-stitched a navy line around the inside (sorry, I don’t have a picture of that).  Ella has requested a heart shirt, which I will do as soon as I get some good, girly fabric!

Our drooly birthday star!

There were plenty of other things that I could have done, and several that I wanted to try, but really, this was just enough for this age.  Sesame Street is all about playing and having fun, and that is exactly what we did!