Elmo's World Party!  My son absolutely loves Elmo, so naturally his birthday party was going to be that! So I decided to do his 3rd Birthday with Elmo's World as the theme! Basically I turned our dining room into Elmo's world. Surprisingly it was pretty inexpensive to do. First I bought about 8 sheets of posterboard 3 for $1 at a dollar store. I also bought a red posterboard so I could make Elmo. Then with one posterboard I made shade" I just used crayons and colored it just like Elmo did on the tv show. I also cut it so that you can lift it up. I hung it on the wall and printed out a picture of Mr. Noodle and put it under the shade so when you lift the shade you see Mr. Noodle! For "drawer" I used more posterboard and again just colored and drew the same way Elmo has it on the show. My son has a table that is his size and I just traced the top of the table onto the posterboard and then cut strips that I colored also to tape around the table so that it looked like drawer. This is what I used to put his presents on. What was really cool about making everything was that my son could help color b/c it doesn't really matter which direction the color is in that's the point! Next I made 3 drawings like Elmo has for this I just used construction paper. 1 of Dorothy his parents and a tree.  I just hung these all around on the walls. Again I paid very close attention to detail and color. Then I had also bought a large box from a moving company which I spray painted white and colored. I have a toy box type chest in my dining room and I used this to put the box over to make piano. For the keys I used the discarded plastic from my sons pretzel dipping snacks. I painted these white and for the black keys I just used a few pieces of electrical tape. Then I glued the 'keys' in place.  Then I drew a picture of Elmo almost 2 1/2 feet tall on the posterboard I painted his eyes and nose and just traced his body with a black paint pen then I cut it out and hung it on the wall next to shade. Also I had a birthday banner and underneath in the same kiddy handwriting and drawing style I wrote my sons name and hung that underneath the banner. For the wall border like Elmo has I just used crepe paper streamers in the same colors and twisted them so they looked the same it was kind of cool b/c it gave it kind of a 3D effect. I also used blue streamer to line the corners of the walls just like on Elmo's World. For the centerpiece well that was easy b/c my son already has Dorothy in a fishbowl. But I bought a cluster of plastic balloons like you can put on cakes and put in the bowl with her and she was the centerpiece. Elmo always has the theme of the day in her bowl. For plates etc. I just bought Elmo loves you plates and bought a coordinating table cloth napkins and plastic wear from the dollar store. I also found plastic Elmo cups with Elmo's face on them for party favors so everyone could keep one including my son. At our local party store about a month before the party they had a sale on mylar balloons for $.69 each! So I bought 8 star balloons ( deflated but I kept the receipt and when it was time they inflated them for FREE!) in coordinating colors and 2 sesame street balloons and divided them equally and tied them to starburst balloon weights that I bought from the dollar store. One set was on the present table the other next to Dorothy. For games I bought two bags of goldfish crackers and when everyone came in they had to guess how many were in the jar and when the party was over I revealed the number and the winner got a small goddie bag. We also played pin the crayon in Elmo's hand. For this we used the Elmo I had drawn and I just drew and cut out different color crayons so everyone would have one. The winner also got a goddie bag.  For the winner bags I just bought red paper bags and one had an Elmo growing towel ( the kind that are shrink wrapped and you just put in  water and it grows) along with an Elmo coloring book. The other one had bubbles and a box of chalk. ( the winners gave the bags to my son anyway) These were the only games we played b/c it was really only adults(our parents flew in from out of state) but there are many more games you can play and more favor ideas it's almost endless what you can do! For snacks we had different things my son likes but I made homemade tortilla chips and used a goldfish cookie cutter to cut them out!  Last but not least was the cake and it was Elmo's head you can buy a pan for this but it was too expensive and I opted to free hand the cake. For the candles I decided to go with Crayon candles these you can get at a party store $.99. That really tied everything all together! Needless to say my son LOVED the party and it was a very memorable birthday for our whole family! "