Curious George DIY Birthday Party- Decorating and Food

Curious George, everyone's favorite monkey! 

With lots of free images online, pbs made my work easy.

Starting Out.. 

First I knew I wanted a Curious George somewhere, so I found a nice image of him flying with balloons. I printed it out 3 feet high and backed it. You can use cardboard or foam board, anything rigid. 

I them nailed it to the tree and added some balloon sticks to look like he was flying.(If you've never heard of balloon sticks, they are sticks that can hold balloons on the end, You can stick them anywhere and you don't need helium. Kids love to run around with them like magic wands, pretty cool!)

The Tables and Food...

Since it was an outside party, I decided to keep the decor simple and focus on the food, cake and games for the decorating. With balloons and some easy pre-made banners, it didn't take long to hang everything. For the tables, I wrapped some empty boxes in striped wrapping paper for height and used some basic gift bags to hold the balloons in place.

I printed out some pictures of George for the table along with tent cards for the food. I wanted to be safe just in case of allergies, etc. 

The food ideas were kept simple with small kids in mind. I started with popcorn, 2 different kinds, one plain just salted and another with cheese ( I just used a packet from an organic Annie's macaroni and cheese box, worked amazing!)

 Next was a crudites with cucumber, carrots and celery. I put a little salad dressing in each cup before I placed the vegetables for easy dipping. I used little cups for easy holding of little hands as well as keeping everyone's separate so it didn't get too messy or germy (: 

 Same for the fruit. I also put some images of the characters on die cuts and used 1/2 pop sicle sticks. Just chopped strawberries, blueberries and pineapple.

I did put a plate for adults as well so they could take what they wanted.

I made some easy pinwheel sandwiches. There are a lot of recipes online. I made 2 varieties just in case of allergies, one with cheese and one without.

Popcorn was also self serve.

 I had some crackers and cheese along with drink boxes for the kids, just easier than cups, (although I don't usually buy them). For the adults I had a range of drinks like Iced Tea and limeade with seltzer. 
I found yellow plates and cups and saw a very cute idea to put tape around the top of the cup and you place it upside down on the plate to make the Man with the Yellow hats hat, but it was just too windy to lay them out, so they stayed stacked (:

It worked really well using the cups and kept everyone relatively neat! You could also use divided plates and have the adults serve the kids.

Next..Let's play!!