What is a 1st Birthday party without a little drama? This weekend we celebrated our little Charlotte’s first birthday and wouldn’t you know, it rained, and not only did it rain, it was cold and breezy. And it wasn’t event like a sprinkle of rain, it was an out right down pour THE. WHOLE. TIME.
Sometimes you have to roll with the punches, or the thunder in this case. Luckily, we had a covered pavilion so it wasn’t too bad, and those brave family and friends, they deserve extra cake for coming out even with the dreary weather.
The party, the party however, was not dreary at all. It was so fun! Let me take you through it and, since you are on tinylimes.com, you know I am a handmade shop owner and I love my fellow handmade shop companions so they will be making all sorts of appearances in this post!
P.S. THANK YOU Amanda Hendrickson Photography for coming out, again, in the rain, to capture fun moments of Charlotte’s fun birthday! I recommend anyone doing a big birthday party hire out a professional photographer like Amanda to get all the shots. When you are the one planning it and running around, you don’t get a chance to photograph your hard work.
First of all, I want to go over a few reasons why many of us mom’s like to throw such a big party for our child’s first birthdays. This is not coming from a licensed psychologist or anything, so please don’t put me in that category as I start listing the reasons why I think we do the big party:
- When this is your first child, you are experiencing a lot of firsts with them, its fitting to celebrate a first birthday. I think that’s why kid 2 and 3 , etc, get the short end of the stick on first birthday parties because parents are experiencing many unexpected ‘firsts’ anymore
- It is a way for Mom, you, to celebrate the anniversary of your BIRTH day, your birthing day, a way to be like..wahoo I did it!
- There are many mothers out there who had a horrible labor experience, that would be me, and I can’t begin to appropriately describe the feeling I had to know I made it through all that, and delivered this baby of mine and my c-section scar reminds me all the time how difficult she was coming out, but how all worth it was and now we can celebrate a birthday.
- So, like many moms, I also suffered from post partum depression. It didn’t hit me that I had it until Charlotte was four months old. The first few months I couldn’t be happy being a mom and I never understood why until I finally saw a professional. At first I was scared of having PPD, I thought , now Im a statistic! No, now I am GLAD I got the help and my treatment has helped me enjoy being a first time mom and this first Birthday is a celebration of not only Charlotte, but our whole family, a year of memories I can enjoy and many more to come!
Okay now to the fun stuff! PAR-TAY time! And decorations!!
And, if you remember above how I mention hiring out a photographer to help out with the pictures, I highly recommend ordering custom decorations for your party. I know in our minds we just want to make everything, and ‘oh it will be so fun and cute and save money’….woh woh woh…okay Honey, if you are a stay at home mom with nothing else to do but watch TV without a kid around you all day long, then go for it..craft away, craft away your time instead of being with your child. Guilt trip? Unless you are doing these things for a living, yes I am totally guilt tripping you! Why run around town getting supplies to cut, paste, string, straighten all these pinterest perfect things when you can buy them already made and inexpensively, I might add! Tally up the cost, plus time to make it, plus time to set it up…. Are you already tired? Me too.
For instance, tassel garlands and gold circle glitter garlands, made by Peachy Details. I used the tassel garlands for my gigantic balloons, and the gold circle glitter garlands added extra style to my ‘Sweets & Treats’ sign.
Keeping with the garland theme, how fun is this felt ball garland made by Modernly Mae, I spaced out the fun colors for pictures of Charlotte
I also used pictures of charlotte in between this beautiful laser cut pennant banner by Creative Juice Café
The pictures were hung with adorable mini pink clothes pins also by Creative Juice Café, and they were such a fun pop of color!
You will notice the pretty frame with a fun sign inside of it. I know chalkboard signs for first birthdays are really popular, and Pickle Noodle Boutique has many fun designs, like below. But for Charlotte’s birthday I wanted them to take one of their current designs for a Christmas card year in review and make it a “Charlotte’s first year in Review” sign and I LOVE IT! I went from May to May and this sign was a big conversation piece at the party! One, because it was a fun way to read how charlotte developed, and secondly because it was a little different and unexpected. The beautiful pink frame you see is from Red Egg Boutique. This frame is amazingly beautiful and well made.
For the food, we had Kimmy’s Famous Ham Fried Rice, and Grandma Cori’s yummy cupcakes with fresh strawberry frosting, popcorn and of course cake! We put popcorn in gold and white striped popcorn boxes from Creative Juice Café. They were perfect! And because we had tons of ham fried rice left over, my mom was filling those popcorn boxes with rice and sending people home with them, haha!
I labeled the food with these fun laser cut place cards from Alexis Mattox Design (@AlexisMattoxDesign). Alexis Mattox Design also made the Sweets & Treats sign for me and this ‘ Best Day Ever’ cake topper!
We also had another cake topper, so yes, we had two cakes…I couldn’t help it..don’t judge!
This one by Minted Wreaths, made an appearance on my blog a bit ago, and again here! So well made and those poms on the top are so adorable, right?
The cake stand, or a pedestal plate as I call them, also made an appearance on my blog a bit ago as well. This wonderful hand painted master piece is also by the talented Red Egg Boutique. I love this yellow, the pop and brightness it adds to the table!
My table centerpieces included shabby chic hand painted jars from Lark’s Closet, whom also had a feature in a prior post. These jars were perfect to hold fun ‘blooms’ of felt made by Modernly Mae and table numbers made of cherry wood and laser cut to perfection by Alexis Mattox Designs. I had table numbers because I was expecting a bigger turnout on the guests, but because of the weather we didn’t have the amount of kids as anticipated. I still put them out cause they were cute and they were going to be used in conjunction with Fantastic Face Painting to call out table numbers where kids were sitting instead of having them wait in line to get their face painted. Yep, I am always thinking.
The face painting was such a treat and so fun! The kiddos had a blast and the girls with Fantastic Face Painting did such a great job! I mean, look at these faces!
A few things that were my addition, and not from an Etsy owner were all the owl décor. They were part of my baby shower when I was pregnant with Charlotte, my mother in law did a cute owl theme, So I brought them out again for Charlotte’s First Birthday. The floral piece, the 1, I made as well, and that was pretty fun. I love flamingos this year, so I tried to incorporate them somehow, even though they don’t really go with anything. Whatever, carpe diem! The Gigantic Balloons you see are not home made but are from Creative Juice Café, and they are better than the big ones from Zurchers. Even though I had Zurchers inflate the balloons for me haha. I used gold polka dot craft paper as my back drop above the table, and simple black fabric for the table cloth.
Needless to say, it was a fun filled day. Cold and wet but fun filled and memorable. What an amazing opportunity to be a mom and celebrate a child, especially your first child and their first birthday!
{Foodie + Cakes + Classes} 