Hop on Popcorn Bar and Party Supply Giveaway

I coordinated a Dr. Seuss Carnival for our grade school read-a-thon last month and we had a HOP on POPcorn Bar as one of the booths.  It was a huge hit with the kids!

Above are a few of the treats we had spread out on the table.
We bought the popcorn from our local gourmet popcorn company. We selected orange and green apple to go along with the book cover (I was tempted by the cherry red and cotton candy turquoise colors which would also be Dr. Seuss style) then I grabbed a couple of bags of pre-popped butter yellow popcorn from our local grocery store to fill the yellow bin. We also had smaller containers, found at the dollar store, filled with pretzles, gold fish crackers, M&M candies and marshmallows.  I’ve also seen Teddy Graham crackers used that look like the Lorax Brown Barbaloots.
If you are doing a smaller party I would have made the popcorn myself at home. There are great recipes for Jello Popcorn that would make your popcorn colorful and tasty like the popcorn below.
I’ve seen some beautiful displays of the Hop on Popcorn bar done, like this one from Kristi at LollyJane.com, which inspired me, but I wanted bright colors and casual buckets for our carnival theme. The party below was for teenage girls and looked stunning.

Our fabulous PTA volunteers (thanks Kimmie & Karyn!) manned the booth and made this eye-catching sign (thanks Sara).  Make sure to have disposable gloves and serving utensils (we used measuring cups) and we chose to have the volunteers serve the food. If you have a smaller party it would be fun to let the kids serve themselves. It still gets messy so make sure to have a table cloth too.

I used my Silhouette cutting machine to make the vinyl letters on the yellow tub. You could always draw words on a container with a permanent marker.

I had wanted to get these cute chevron treat bags I had seen at party stores but the price was always more than I was willing to pay. They happened to be a daily deal on Pick Your Plum the month before this party so I snatched them up that day. They offer these bags often, as well as other fabulous party supplies, home décor, jewelry and more.

I have recently become an affiliate for Pick Your Plum (you’ll notice their daily deals on my side bar) and they have offered to give one of my readers a $25 Plum Box full of swank crafting, fashion, baking, and home decor swag! I’m not sure of the exact contents but I know it is always something fantastic. Just check out their site to see some examples. Most items are under $10. Sign up for their alert emails to know what deal is up next.

Use the gadget below to enter to win a $25 Plum Box. Giveaway ends May 7, 12:00 midnight EST. U.S. valid addresses only. UPDATE: Midnight May 7. A winner has been selected and contacted by email. 
a Rafflecopter giveaway
If you need more ideas for a Dr. Seuss Party or Carnival, follow my Dr. Seuss Party Pinterest board.
This is where I’ve collected ideas that helped me plan this carnival.  I’ll be sharing more details about the carnival on obSEUSSed later this week.
Sharing this post at SNAP!Creativity. See more great ideas on SNAP!

Bloggers Inspired by Dr. Seuss

Look no further, if you need an idea to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday you can find something simple or elaborate on one of these bloggers’ lists.


There are so many fabulous ideas from bloggers, teachers, parents and more online now. I can’t keep up with it all.  I have loved gathering ideas in my Dr. Seuss Link Collection and Pinterest Board with 1,500+ ideas (see links on the right side bar).  But, I wanted to share more resource lists with you to help you prep for Read Across America Day, celebrated this Friday. I love that you can refer to these lists each year to find new ways to celebrate.

The site I see referred to most on Pinterest for Dr. Seuss activities is I Can Teach My Child.  Jenae has been one of my favorite bloggers I’ve watched over the years. She has a variety of simple activities you can do at home or school to connect to Dr. Seuss books.

Jenae is also an excellent literacy resource. She wrote this e-book, I Can Teach My Child to Read!, which is on sale through Friday (but always a great price). I’ve been browsing through it and really wish I had a hard copy to refer to more often. I love all her tips.

Mom Endeavors rounded up 75+ Dr. Seuss Activity Ideas.


Angie at The Country Chic Cottage blog created a list of 40+ Dr. Seuss activities.


She created this free printable Dr. Seuss Cootie Catcher. This is my favorite quick craft I’ve seen this year. I printed one out and my kids played with it today.


The Teaching Blog Addict has over 30+ Dr. Seuss activity ideas, including tons of printable worksheets and great classroom ideas.


The Educator’s Spin on It gathered 30+ Lorax ideas.


They also have a virtual book club which is a collection of 100+ links with Dr. Seuss book activity ideas.


Jamerrill from Free Home School Deals has over 100 ideas on this post.


Jill gathered 50+ great Dr. Seuss snack ideas.


Motherhood on a Dime collected 30 great Dr. Seuss ideas.


Learn with Play at Home features several of their favorite Dr. Seuss activities and has a great Link list of 100+ ideas.


Amy, from Some of the Best Things in Life are Mistakes, shares her favorite Dr. Seuss finds on Pinterest.


Parent Teach Play has 60+ ideas on their link list.


J Daniel 4’s Mom has 20+ ideas to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday.


Deborah at TEACH PRESCHOOL has 40+ links of Dr. Seuss activities.

Deb at PreK and K Sharing has a great Montessori Dr. Seuss activity

This post shares 27 of my personal Dr. Seuss activities.


And, don’t forget my Pinterest boards with 1,500+ Dr. Seuss ideas collected.


And you’re sure to find something that catches your eye at my Dr. Seuss Link Collection with 300+ ideas.

Add these all up (sure there is bound to be some overlap) and you’ll find thousands of ideas to pull from to celebrate reading with Dr. Seuss. Leave a message below if you have links for other Dr. Seuss ideas.

Grinch Craft Round-Up {App Review & Giveaway}

I’ve been finding a lot of fun Grinch crafts, activities, treats and apps online lately. ‘Tis the Season! I thought I’d share a few of my favorites with you so you can all have a Merry Grinchmas!


GRINCH CHRISTMAS BOOK COUNTDOWN
I actually got around to wrapping 25 of my Christmas books to do a Grinch countdown advent for Christmas. After seeing several versions floating around on Pinterest I've been wanting to make my own.  We have 70+ Christmas books so I still have 3 baskets out for the kids to browse but they sure do love having a present to unwrap every night. Even though they have read the books in years past, they love the excitement of a surprise gift. (I really should have wrapped them all because the three of them have a hard time taking turns.) The Grinch protects our books and I move him around like a puppet and make him say "only one book a day." He's such a Grinch.

GRINCH GIFT BAGS:
This past year I made Grinch gift bags that we leave out for Santa to fill. I found the red Santa bags at a Pottery Barn return/outlet store in Salt Lake City for $3-8 a bag. Some had embroidered names on them so I ordered Robert Kaufman Grinch fabric on ebay and sewed them on the bags as pockets so you can fill the pockets too. All those bags under the tree were made with scrap Christmas fabric. We use them every year.



GRINCH CHRISTMAS TREE
I found this fun Grinch Christmas tree on a friend’s facebook page. It is from a Festival of Tree fundraiser in Wyoming.

GRINCH CRAFT ROUND-UP
Here are some of my favorite Grinch crafts I’ve seen on Pinterest, Instagram and Etsy.

• I saw this Grinch Knit Hat on instagram and found out Anna makes these and sells them for only $10.00 + S&H at Mama’s Lil Monkeys. Her Christmas order cut off was this past Monday but you can always order one for next year. 
• You can buy the Grinch Knit Hat pattern with ear flaps for $2.00 at Ravelry if you have the ability to make it yourself.
• The kids will have an afternoon of fun with the Grinch Goo Sensory Bag by Crystal at Growing a Jeweled Rose.
• How cute are those Grinch Photo Booth props? For only $4, you get the pdf files to cut out. Just add sticks and you’ll be ready for your Grinch party. By Chela Williams on Etsy.
• Kids can use Pearler Beads to make the Grinch. You could turn this into an ornament. Made by April Hannah as seen on her Artwork Pinterest board.
• Try making delicious, cute and healthy Grinch Grape Party Poppers by Amy at Creative Kid Snacks.
• Find out how to make these simple furry Grinch Gloves by The Crafty Scarlet Raven.
• If you have a fireplace, make the Grinch Hands stick out by Rachelle Yakubu Photography.

GRINCH LINKS:
Click on pictures below or blog name above for more details on each project.

Grinch Hat $10	Grinch Hat Pattern	Grinch DIY Fur Gloves
Grinch Grape Poppers	Grinch Goo	Grinch Pearler Beads
Grinch Photo Booth Props	Grinch Photo Booth Frame	Grinch Cookie Recipe
Grinch Advent Calendar	Grinch Gingerbread Houses	Grinch Pills
Grinch Gift Bags /Roundup	Grinch Fireplace	Painted Grinch PJs

InLinkz.com

GRINCH APPS:

• Have you seen all the fabulous Grinch Apps from Oceanhouse Media in the itunes app store?  All of their holiday apps are on sale 40-50% off from Dec. 5-11th. See the list here. and I am giving away the How the Grinch Stole Christmas book app to a reader this week.  I’m also giving away a copy of Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (This is my all-time favorite Dr. Seuss book. It just came out as an app this week and I love the message about being grateful for all that you have because you could be much worse off.)

They have the Grinch Book, Camera and Grinchmas Game available on itunes.
{Record your own voice} Grinch Story App Review:
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas has been out for a little while but this last week they just added the feature to record your own voice as the narrator.  My family tried it out this week and had so much fun. We each took a turn reading a page. Even my two-year-old added sound effects.  I like that when you listen back to the story they still have the sound effects with your voice for each page, like wind blowing, music and toy noises too.  I even got my family to sing Fa-who-fores, Da-who-dores with me. The sad part is, I paused it in the middle of recording and tried to re-do a page and from that point on our story didn’t record even though the red-flashing light said it was recording. I’ll have to figure that out next time. It is a long story so if you don’t have a way to go back and fix a page easily it makes it tricky and frustrating after you spent 10 minutes thinking you were recording. I also tried to send the recorded story to my email or to another device (it gave those options at the end) but it froze and I had to exit back to the story several times. These are just glitches I’m sure they are working on fixing.  I did get through recording it once by myself and my kids have had fun listening back to me reading the story to them in my sing-songy narrator voice.

GIVEAWAY:   Closed 12/9/12

I am giving away a code for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! book app and Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? book app from Oceanhouse Media. PLUS a BONUS code for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer book app.  3 Apps total.

TO ENTER: Please leave me a comment below telling me your favorite Dr. Seuss book your first name and email address in the comment. 
Rules: Must be 18 years or older. Must have a valid email address. App codes are for the itunes store and work on apple devices. No purchase necessary. Retail value of prize is $11.97. Giveaway closes Midnight PST on Sunday, Dec. 9th 2012. Winner will be selected by random.org. Odds of winning determined by the number of entries.
*Disclosure: I was given codes for the three apps I’m giving away for the purpose of review and three codes to giveaway to a reader. I am not compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.

LEAVE YOUR COMMENT BELOW TO ENTER. MERRY GRINCHMAS!
The winner was the #1 comment from Joy.

Sharing these Grinch ideas at JDaniel4's Blog featuring more Christmas crafts.