Sunday, October 20, 2013

Birthdays and Pinterest {part one}

Honestly, how did we ever plan anything before Pinterest? I know we did. I know that somehow I managed to create a lovely first birthday party for my son without any assistance from Pinterest. I am a creative person, I have a design degree. Yet this does not seem to matter, I am drawn to Pinterest for inspiration, I need Pinterest. Okay, I'll admit it, I am obsessed with Pinterest. But from this obsession, a fabulous first birthday party was produced from my Little A.

This will be a two part post. First, the glorious details about the party and where I found my inspiration on Pinterest, and second, my feelings as I reminisce about the last year and the milestone of our baby girl turning one (can someone hand me a tissue please!).

So before I get too emotional let's dive into the party details. I'm not a huge fan of the commercial themed parties for first birthdays, I know too well that it will only be a short time before she is insisting on a (insert favorite cartoon here) party and the first and second birthday are really my only two opportunities to do something a little less commercialized. So I dived into Pinterest and searched First Birthdays to find some kind of inspiration. I came across several Sugar and Spice ideas and fell in love with the concept. The two most influential posts came from {here} and {here}.

Throw in a little shabby chic vintage inspiration (I apologize, this link is just an image, I don't know where the original came from) and I had a party plan.

I started gathering supplies for the fabric strip garland by scouring my moms craft bins and searching the thirft stores. Surprisingly, I did not have as much luck at the thrift stores as I thought I would. I did find one great full sheet that had all the colors I wanted in it and my mom came through with a ton of scrap fabric that tied everything together.

I knew I also wanted to make a sweet Tulle Wreath inspired by {this} post (which also happens to be my most popular re-pinned pin by far!). And if you're not feeling very crafty, she also has a link to buy her beautiful tulle wreaths. My wreath turned out a little different than the inspiration. I happened to have a grapevine wreath already in possession so I figured I would save money and just use it instead of buying a foam one. I like the way it turned out but I wish I would have bought more Tulle. I only bought two yards and it could have been a little fuller, but I didn't feel like going out and buying more so I left it as it was. I just used my daughters hair clips for the flowers. I purchased the A from Hobby Lobby and painted it with Big A's assistance.


Since Little A was born I have been taking monthly photos, inspired after seeing several other friends doing the same. I loved the idea of posing her in the same location and seeing how she changed. I printed these photos and used clothes pins to clip them to a pre-bought pennant that I hung over some more fabric garland. It was a fun layered look, the only oops was that the pennant had only ten triangles and I had 11 months, so I had to leave one month out.






























I used a little wood table and chair that my mom already had for Little A to eat her cake. I wrapped a plastic table cloth around the bottom, ruffling it, an idea I got from {here}.




The last little detail was a chalk board sign from Hobby Lobby with the Sugar and Spice poem for the center piece of the table.






The best part of a Sugar and Spice them is the food! Most of the inspiration I found had sweets and spicy appetizers, but since our party was going to be set for late afternoon I decided to go for less heavy foods and a more snack style setup. For the Sugar I had Pink and White Marshmallows, Pink Wafer Cookies, and Strawberry Cake Cake Pops. I had two types of cupcakes - Sugar Cookie Cupcakes & Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes.


To round out the Spice side; Spicy Walnuts, Maple Spice Popcorn, and Spicy Mexican Fudge. All the food was amazing. The popcorn was a big hit, probably because there was so much sugar overload and it was the only less sugary option.


I had a great backdrop for the party, set up in my parents courtyard. It really completed the Shabby Chic look with the rustic fence and my mom's great old table for the centerpiece. We were also blessed with some absolutely amazing weather. It rained early in the morning but had cleared off and was sunny and beautiful by the time the party started. We could not have asked for a better day.








It was also my nieces 21ST Birthday, so we snapped a picture of them together with their own blocks, yet another idea seen on Pinterest. We realized we could recreate this picture every year as Little A turns 2 and she turns 22, etc. I love this idea and am looking forward to making it a tradition.

















Little A was all smiles and loved all the attention. She dived into her cake like an old pro and I'm sure her sugar high kept her going for the rest of the day. We got to spend time with a lot of family and soaked up the last of the warm weather before Fall sets in.




                                                           Happy birthday sweet girl!!

For all my Pinterest Inspiration including recipes to all the yummy food we had you can find my board {here}





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