Dr. Seuss Party Week! Truffula Tree Tutorial

Who’s Here? Who’s Here??

It’s the Cat in the Hat over there!

We got to play out back with our Gack!

Oh dear, oh dear, It’s Thing 1 and Thing 2!

I do hope they don’t make a mess while they’re here…

Our Mother would be upset if they do!

The Lorax and his trees just strolled in with the breeze!

We had a great time with the decorations for sure! We had all the of coordinating fabrics, tissue balls, yarn ball decorations all over the place. As I mentioned before, my husband is a wonderful help when it comes to making the decorations! One day, before our son was born, he came home with a transparency projector. You know, our teachers used to have them when we were kids… Before smartboards and computers in every classroom… well, when he came home with it, I was thinking to myself what are we ever going to use this thing for… Well it make in handy last year with the dragon birthday party. And again this year with all the Dr. Seuss characters. He typically uses the projector, draws the characters on wood and cuts it out. This year he used more cardboard, but I think next year we’ll go back to wood… The gack  had to be redone from cardboard into wood! And boy is he cool!

And in addition to all the Dr. Seuss ‘guests’ that visited our party, we also had a little Trufulla Tree forest!

Ready to make some yourself??

Truffula Tree Tutorial

Materials:

Balloons

Newspaper

Paper Mache Ingredients, flour and water

String or Curly Ribbon

Glue

Feather Boas, about 6 per tree

Fun Noodles

Wooden dowels

Black Crepe Paper Streamer

Double Sided tape

Step 1: Paper Mache! Blow up the balloons, mix up your paper mache mixture, tear your newspaper into strips and get ready to get messy! I used 1 part flour and 2 parts water for the paper mache recipe, but feel free to use your own. At one point my husband added drywall hot mud to speed up the process! For some reason I have never seen any paper mache articles mention dry wall mud! Not sure if it helped or not with the drying time, but those balloons were harder than the others… Anyway….

Step 2: Apply the newspaper to the balloon. Dip the paper in the paper mache mixture, rub off excess mixture, stick the paper to the balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. Dip the paper, rub off excess, stick to balloon. over and over and over… Get the idea….

Step 3: Hang the balloon and let it dry for about 2 or 3 days.

Step 4: Once everything has dried and is hard, it’s time to get back to work! Cut a hole in the bottom of the balloon, just big enough for the fun noodle to fit in.

Step 5: Start gluing on the feather boas. I did this step in two parts. I did the tops, let them dry and then came back the next day to finish the bottom halves. I got my feather boas at The Dollar Tree. Not sure if they were only there for Halloween of if they are always there.

Step 6: The tree trunk. Using double-sided tape secure the crepe paper streamer to the top of the fun noodle. Both the fun noodles and the crepe paper can also come from The Dollar Tree is you time it right! The fun noodles are only stocked at The Dollar Tree during the summer as I found out… Too Late…. Of course I realized I needed these about a week after they weren’t in stores anymore. I called all The Dollar Trees around. Then moved on to Target. I finally found then there, but for more than a dollar….

Step 7: Hammer the wood dowel into the ground until it’s secure. And then put the fun noodle over the wooden dowel and add the top of the tree!

And Wah-La!

I did feel like a truffula tree artistic genius when I got them all made!

And I have a few left… If you’re in the Seattle area and need them, let me know!

 

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