First Birthday

 

 

Starting to decorate

decorating cupcakes

 

 

daddy and birthday girl selfie

teething baby

first bonfire awake

 

fairy beanie

hanging on the porth with my mom and dad

walking with Sean's mom

tex mex night

National Arboretum

More Birthday Preps

We are three weeks away from Lily's birthday, and this four months of planning really paid off.  There was about three months where we were too busy walking the baby to work on anything.  Now, after a big push this week, we're almost finished! We just need to make a tree trunk, buy some straws, buy some cupcake papers, and put this whole thing together.  I even tested a cupcake recipe that was a hit with Daddy!

For the cupcake toppers, I loved these owl ones, but in trying to keep it under $100, I wasn't going to spend $40+ on just those.  I also wanted to keep with the (free) owl theme I found on How to Nest for Less, but those were round and I really liked the squares with the layered-looking border.  I was going to print white squares and layer them on scrapbooking paper, but I realized I didn't have enough of one color without going to the store.  And, I realized I wanted the back to say something different like the Pintrest/Etsy fancy ones.  So, I used Photoshop to create a layered border. 

cupcake toppers

I wanted to put these owl faces on glasses, but we were having trouble locating the right kind of glasses without buying a new set. When we were looking through ideas again, my mom and I came back to this picture of an owl-themed party, and mentioned that we have a ton of mason jars in the shed.  So, she did the mason jars up with the foam we had laying around:

owl glasses

I loved the idea of owl magnets as a party favor after I saw these.  But, again, I didn't want to spend $1 per magnet and wind up dropping $40+ on favors.  So, I purchased magnet paper off of Amazon for $9 and printed us up some 36 magnets. 

birthday magnet party favors

I liked the theme here, but we really didn't have much we could do with it.  So, I took the owl from the window and made it out of foam for our window:

owl for the window

We picked up a couple of silicone cupcake pans.  I was thinking about just buying cupcakes, but these gourmet cupcakes run about $3/cake here.  And, we need some gluten free ones anyway.  So, I picked up a couple of silicone cupcake pans for $25 total on Amazon.  Including the flour ($18ish), we've only spent $40 on cupcakes so far.  Just need to buy some cupcake papers and little butter for the frosting.

Owl Party First Birthday Preps

Owl party inspiration

Once upon a time, I used to be a super hero / community organizer.  I've put together my fair share of fundraisers, parties, meetings, religious services, and other events.  One of my favorite things to do was to spruce up a gathering with handmade decorations.  My last few little hurrahs were donned with decorations made out of construction paper.  I am sometimes a frugal Virgo, and I am determined to spend $100 or less on Lily's party.  It should be a fun celebration, we should take great pictures, but Lily isn't going to remember it.

Sean and I decided to do owls for Lily's first birthday.  In browsing Pinterest for ideas, I found that lots of people loved owl parties for babies, too!  I used to be able to power through decorations for a small event in a couple of days.  However, I now only have a few minutes to spend on this at a time.  So, I knew I'd have to start months and months in advance if I wanted to even remotely finish by her first birthday.  So far, I've spent just under $28.

Getting ready to make paper chains (while watching TV)!

paper chains

"Happy Birthday" banner

I cut the banners out of construction paper. Here is the template for that.  I used the printable files from How to Nest for Less to get the letters and owls.

leaves for a big tree

I would love to put a tree in the doorway between the dining room and the living room.  I love this droopy tree.   We have some cardboard boxes around the house that we'll use to make a long tree stump.  I cut out 100 of these leaves for good measure.  Here's what it might look like:

Here are more ideas that I'm working on:

I love these square cupcake toppers.  I used Photoshop to cut out the circle on the round cupcake toppers above, and I'm going to cut them in squares.  I want to layer them with scrapbook paper, which is a really quick way to liven them up a bit.  I also think I'm going to take some of these and make them magnets for party favors.  I think that these magnets are really cute, and I'd love to buy some of them from Etsy, but I want to do this on a budget, and I can personalize the ones I print.

 These owl glass decorations are super cute.  I have extra foam from another project, and I picked up some of the squiggly stuff and googly eyes from Joann Fabrics. 

I like the way they used balloons here.

This is a really cute way to showcase Lily from birth to 1 year.  If I get everything else done, I'd love to do this.

I really like this idea of drawing an outline of something on cardboard or paper board and cutting it out.  This looks really cool!  Not sure if I can figure out anything that it would work for.  Maybe the tree trunk?  The idea comes from a night owl party that looks really fun.