I decided on an alphabet theme for Blakely's party. She is pretty obsessed with letters and has been for a few months. Anytime she sees a sign or letters on anything she yells "ABCD! ABCD!" So I thought this would be an easy theme and one that she would actually like.
Once I decided on that I needed to figure out the colors. I found some cute fabric at Ho.bby L.obby that I like and I used that as my inspiration. It has cream background with oranges, grays and turquoise. {you can see it in the fabric bunting}
We did the same type of party that we did last year. Mostly our families with some of my friends and their kids thrown in there. We did it at our house which I like because it forces me Juanet to do a deep clean and to get rid of some clutter. We had a great turnout and I was happy with how everything turned out. I didn't go as crazy as I did last year with the decor and food mostly because of time. It was a lot easier to craft and plan last year when my little would quietly play at my feet. This year was a bit different as she wanted to "help" which also meant destroy everything. HA! Last year I made most of the food and I told myself there was no way I was doing that this year! Too much...just too much.
We had the party on Sunday, October 13th, her actual birthday. I was going to do it on Saturday but it was getting a bit difficult to plan around the home Razorb.ack game. I know, we definitely live in the south. So I moved it to Sunday afternoon and I am glad that we did.
I'm just going to photo dump the pictures with a description by some of them!
I wrote the alphabet in sidewalk chalk on the road leading to our house. I did each letter different and at the end I wrote Happy Birthday Blakely. It turned out cuter than expected and it was a last minute addition. I did this about 20 minutes before the party and only because I had a little bit of extra time.
really tough to get a good picture of this!
entryway. hard to tell but those are peices of chevron-burlap with the letters P-A-R-T-Y
invite.
I did iced sugar cookies as favors. Since there were mostly adults at the party I didn't want to do different favors for adults and kids. Who doesn't like a cookie? I got these at the same bakery I got the cookies from for her party last year.
This is the table in my dining room. I sewed that fabric into a tablecloth because I couldn't find anything big enough that I liked. I also sewed the turquoise, orange and gray fabric together and cut it to look like fringe. This was easy. I do not sew much but I may do more now because it was super fun!
I made this fabric bunting. It was super easy as well but it did take some time. I cut all the strips of fabric first. Then I tied them around some burlap ribbon (you could use anything, wire, cord, another long strip of fabric, etc. I used the burlap ribbon because it left a bunch on each end to hang the bunting up with).
Once that was done I hung the letters that I painted with gray yarn. Here is a close up so you can see a little better.
I tried to go with food that reflected in some way what Blakely likes to eat. Dip is high on that list! I had three different dips (crab dip, vegetable dip and creamy cowboy caviar) with different chips and crackers to go with. I made little signs for each food item and put them in frames. This one says "D is for DIP". These were the same frames I used for her party last year only I spray painted them to match this color scheme. I was actually able to use quite a bit of stuff from last year!
P is for PASTA
S is for SNACK (goldfish, Annie's cheddar bunnies and squares)
And then I had "T is for TREAT". My MIL made the rice krispie treats with alphabet cookie cutters. I had grand plans to stick some of them on a skewer and put them in a vase as a centerpiece for the table. It didn't last long though because they kept falling off because they weren't hard enough. Maybe if you let them get too hard to eat that idea would work!
Petite fours with letters on them.
I think this was actually my favorite thing about the decor. The picture doesn't do it justice and you'll have to ignore the horribly ugly chandelier (new one still sitting in the box in the garage!) but I felt like this just made the table and the decor in the dining room. I painted the chip board letters and then hung them up with some yarn. It was so cute and Blakely still loves picking out the letters!
I made this last minute because I realized I needed something that said Happy Birthday! I literally made it a few days before the party and I was so over it when we tried to hang it up that I didn't care that it was not super perfectly even!
Now that you have seen all of the decor I'll tell you about the actual party! We had it at 2 which was right after nap time and seemed like a good idea. Well, I planned it that way before my child decided she hated sleep. So she refused her nap that day but it worked out fine since she had so much to entertain her. She got a bubble bath instead of a nap. Who doesn't want to start their birthday party with a bubble bath?
Once everyone arrived and we all ate we did a mini cake for B and sang Happy Birthday to her. She pretty much loved that.
Then she opened up some shoes. Two pairs of shoes actually. Snow White shoes and light up Minnie shoes. No way was she sitting down after that! She strutted around in those things and didn't give a second look to anything else for a while!
She also got a big trunk full of dress up clothes. That has been a big hit although we already need a bigger trunk :-/
It was a great day for everyone and B really enjoyed her party. She walked around pointing to all the letters I had around and telling people what they were. She loves when all of her peeps are here. She kind of shows off when she has everyone's attention. It is cute but I think I am in trouble there! Ha!
After everyone cleared out I gave B a present just from me. It was this princess nightgown and an Ariel doll. She immediately had to put it on and we went outside and played on her swing set for the longest. I'd estimate that Ariel went down the slide 45 times!
Blakely's First Birthday
