I thought it was time to finally talk about Kaley's first birthday party, which was a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star theme. I know most of my 2016 posts we about Kaley, but those should calm down a little now that I'm no longer doing monthly pictures. I knew right away that this was the theme I wanted to do, since I only get to pick a few for them before the start to pick for themselves.
I love the way that pink and gold look together, it is classy and girly all at the same time. This was such an easy choice for Kaley's first birthday theme, and since I picked it extremely early I was able to do most of the decorations in the summer.
I made the invitation in PicMonkey using the create option with a ton of trial and error getting glitter words to work. This was fun once I got the hang of it, and took so much longer than it should have because of it.
It's hard to see because the background of the invitation is white, done with shades of pink and touches of glittery gold (Trust me that it looks much better in person). I printed these invitations out on 4x6 photo paper and chose a matte finish so that it would be easier to read.
I wanted to have a star-filled night type background for the table, and I chose to use tissue poms as the clouds. I used light pink, dark pink and white tissue paper to make these. Then I cut out a million (not really, but it felt like it) stars in four shades of pink card stock (these were bought as a package and were in a gradient) and I used glitter scrapbook paper for the gold stars.
I hot glued the stars onto fishing line in random patterns that were roughly the same length and used the same amount of stars. A note, I taped the fishing line to the wall under the tissue poms, but also taped the stars in the middle and bottom to the wall to make sure they all stayed forward facing. To make it look a little less formal I taped extra stars along the sides to make it look a little more natural. Pictures do not do this justice, it was so pretty in person!!
Ans if you've followed this blog for any amount of time you know I like to dress our front window up as well. The living and dining rooms are attached, so it helps the two rooms flow together for the parties. I chose to make tissue paper tassels and hang them with some extra stars from the window.
I wish it was easier to take pictures of the front window so you could see how nice this looked in person. I also wished my front window looked a lot nicer than it does, but that's a problem for another time. I can't seem to find the pictures that I took for a tutorial, so I may make some more to show you guys. I will say that the regular tissue paper (pinks) was much easier to work with than the metallic tissue paper (gold).
For the cake smash portion of the party, I set a little area up for Kaley's high chair in the living room so that everyone could see. I put the same stars up for the background, and tissue tassels around the front of the chair. I printed out Kaley's monthly pictures to frame the stars, using gold washi tape on shades of pink card stock. Because I hadn't taken her 12 month pictures yet, I just used a picture from her cake smash the weekend before (watch for a post on that in the future!).
Now for the table and the food, which we decided would be a brunch. We were having Braxton's third birthday party and Kaley's first birthday party a few weeks apart and I wanted to be able to serve different food. Add to that the fact that this party was the week before Christmas, I wanted to make sure that people would be home early in case they had Christmas dinners to go to.
A mimosa bar was a must, but I didn't want to put it on a separate table. So I just put the glasses, juice and champagne at the back of the table on each side, away from little hands. You can see this in the pictures below. For the food we had: a fruit tray, croissants, carrot cake with cream cheese icing (just boxed carrot cake mix with this cream cheese icing), banana bread (recipe here), mini cinnamon rolls and a breakfast bake that my mom made (not pictured).
Yummy. That was what all of that was, and the cinnamon rolls lasted about five minutes after the kids found them. I didn't want to have too much food because it was a brunch, and this worked out to be the perfect amount of food. And all of it was so easy to make ahead of time and set out right before the party started.
Instead of cake I just made some cupcakes with the leftover cake batter from making Kaley's smash cake. I thought it might be a little early for cake, and there were tons of sweets on the table already. I think the parents appreciated this, though I'm sure the cinnamon rolls gave them a sugar high for a few hours.
I used two cake stands to make a tiered stand to put the cake and cupcakes on, which made a great centerpiece for the table. Some gold candlesticks and glitter vases filled with pink flowers finished the table off. I used leftover gold stars hot glued onto cake pop sticks for a little food bling on the cake, banana bread and carrot cakes.
And now some pictures of the birthday girl, who had a special little outfit for the day: a onesie with gold writing and a pink and gold tutu. I don't even care if she hated it, it was the most adorable thing ever! Don't mind the grumpy face, she was tired because it was her nap time right when the party was starting.
She had such a fun day, even though she was exhausted. Kaley decided to stick close to Mommy and even helped open her gifts, kind of. Once the party was in full swing she owned the place and had everyone laughing.
It was a great day and our family and friends spoiled her rotten, and even Braxton had fun stealing Kaley's toys and playing. It was so special to be able to celebrate Kaley's first birthday as a big event, just like we did for Braxton. Though I'm pretty sure that we will now start doing a combined party, since their birthdays are only 16 days apart. Way too much going on to do two birthday parties and Christmas.
Thank you for sharing this year long journey with us, you will have to come back again next year to see what we do for the kids birthdays. It's anyone's guess at this point since my kids change favourites on a daily basis. I love planning and decorating parties, and am so happy that I have someone to share all the hard work and results with.
Kerby
Linking to:
Ginger Snap Crafts - Wow Me Wednesday #282
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