All In A Day: Emily’s First Birthday Party

Friday, November 11, 2011

Emily’s First Birthday Party

Whew! I have finally recovered from Emily’s birthday extravaganza and am finally getting around to posting her party!! I am so excited to share the pictures and details with you! I put a lot of ~~blood~~, sweat, & tears into her party and it turned out almost exactly how I wanted it!

About 50 of our closest family & friends came over on Sunday, November 6th to celebrate Emily’s first year of life with us! It really was so much fun.

*WARNING: There are a TON of really cute pictures ahead!!*

I started by making the invitations myself in Photoshop! I went to a really awesome local shop to have the invitations made for me, but the budget just didn’t allow for them. So I took my vision and got to work trying to make it work myself. I am super happy with how they turned out. I thought they set the tone for the party perfectly. Here’s what I came up with:

Just about everything that I did and/or made for the party was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest! I had a whole board that I dedicated to ideas for Emily’s birthday party. What would we do without that site???

The foyer was set with ceiling to floor pink with white polka dot curtains. I hung her “month” pictures from the curtain, along with a “1” that I made. I also hung a glitter paper lantern from our regular foyer light fixture. Yeah, it’s still hanging there. I just haven’t felt like bringing the latter in to take it down. I took the square table out of the breakfast nook and put it in the foyer. I put a white tablecloth on it, and wrapped it with a table tutu I made. I made a welcome sign using Photoshop. I found the awesome oval frame at Goodwill in Destin and used Krylon’s Glitter Blast to spray it with pink glitter! It turned out awesome. I put one of my favorite pictures from Emily’s 12 month photo shoot in it. I had a ton of Mason jars and I used half to put pink roses in, and the other half to use as votive holders (complete with pink “gems”, pink sparkle ribbon, and topped with a pink “diamond” scrapbooking brad). I also put one of her 12 month pictures in a large mat for party guests to sign and write sweet words to Emily on.

Outside, I hung pink tissue paper poms from our porch. I also made a custom wreath for Em’s b-day (available in the Etsy shop soon)!

We set the food up in the breakfast nook. We put white linens on two 6 foot tables and put them in front of the windows. One table was the main food table. In hindsight, we probably could’ve used another table for the food. It was a little tight on that table. Oh well. We used the 2nd table as the dessert table!

For food, we did a burger bar. I had Publix pat out 100 hamburger sliders. Do you know how hard it is to find slider buns?? Fortunately, I have a friend whose husband delivers bread for Pepperidge Farm. So I gave her a ring to get the scoop on these slider buns. I had to go to 2 different Publix stores to get enough buns. Let’s just say, I cleaned them out of all their slider buns! We also had pasta salad, baked beans, macaroni & cheese, fruit cones, and deviled eggs. Yum!

The dessert bar was my favorite (and I don’t even like sweets that much)! We had a candy bar (with all pink candy, of course), chocolate dipped pretzel sticks, chocolate dipped marshmallows, cupcakes, cookies, and of course Emily’s smash cake! The candy came from a website called Economy Candy. They had the best prices, by far, that I found! Thanks to my bestie Amber for recommending them to me! The owl cookies came from Tasty Pastry, a local bakery. I got the cupcakes from…..are you ready for this??…….SAMS!! And let me just tell you, I had some cupcake critics/connoisseurs at the party and everyone was raving about how awesome the cupcakes were! They really were super yummy!! Sams was super accommodating too! I wanted some vanilla, some chocolate….no problem! I wanted some light pink icing, some hot pink……no problem! And the best part? They were only $13 for 30 cupcakes!!! So I got 2 orders of 30!

I made all the labels for the food. If it’s on paper, I made it! I used some of the amazing Pattern Pieces that Aimee at Sprik Space created! She’s amazing! I did the candy bar labels, the cupcake toppers, the stickers on the candy bags, and the Happy Birthday banner all using the print & cut feature on my Silhouette! Sooooo much easier than gluing 3 or 4 different layers of paper together! Gah! I also made the water bottle labels. I just printed them on regular cardstock paper and used double sided tape to secure them to the bottle. For favors, we had candy and caramel apples! I made the favor tags using the print & cut feature again!

Have I mentioned that I want the new Silhouette Cameo for Christmas?? Or anniversary. Or New Years. Or Thanksgiving. Any holiday, really. Or just because on a random Tuesday would be great too! * I hope the hubs reads this!! Hehehe*

I also made the table runners. I made them using fabric and ribbon! I found the cute cupcakes at Michaels. They are iron-on's so that part was easy! I used some Heat N Bond and my Silhouette to make the monogram for the middle blue runner. I love how they turned out!!

I knew I wanted a vintage high chair for Emily’s party! I wanted to paint it pink. I searched Craigslist and our newspaper for MONTHS and never could find anything. One day I finally found something! It was $15 and the girl selling it was so sweet! Score!

I forgot to take before pictures of it, but here is a before picture that was on the listing:

A little sanding and a few cans of Krylon primer & spray paint later…..

I love how it turned out. I used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl for the back of the chair. For the “EWP”, I literally sprayed the vinyl with the Glitter Blast spray paint before I applied it to the chair. Oh – and I also made her birthday hat! The bib I found at a local children’s boutique.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were having a deck built and boy am I so glad we did! It was perfect for the party! We also bought a gazebo and put out back, with tables and chairs! It was perfect! We also had a bubble machine & cornhole going outside for the kids! They had a blast running through the bubbles! I got the bubble machine at the end of the season at Target for $4!!! And it came with the 6 batteries that it needed. The batteries alone were worth the $4!! I love it when I find a deal like that!

All in all, it was an amazing birthday party. And even though it was way past her nap time, Emily did amazing! She had so much fun! It was a blast and I am grateful everyday for her!