Bean's first birthday went off wonderfully! I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to have done for her party. I had one item on my list that I was going to make IF I had time. Well, at 6:00 Friday night, I thought to myself, "I've got everything else done, but there's nothing left... I'm skipping the party hats. I doubt my kid will wear it anyway!"
Hubby and I decided... well, let me rephrase that one. Hubby decided after Peanut's party back in April, we weren't having anymore kid parties at the house unless it was under 10 people total. That's fine, I didn't have to clean my house. Unfortunately, it meant we needed to bring (and get) a grill for the park and all the decorations. The decorations I made was a "Happy 1st Birthday" banner, pinwheels (although they didn't spin because I couldn't figure out a good way to use a grommet), baby food pinwheel jars filled with jelly beans as favors and smores pops.
For my pinwheels, my first attempts were to follow Create Studio's: How to make a pinwheel blog post. I can use a grommet tool easily when I'm only punching through one or two sheets of paper, but apparently, I'm horrible at doing it through 5 (the folded over pinwheel edges plus the center for those of us who can't count). Instead, I followed Salt Tree's blog and used wooden dowels instead of pop sticks. I found my double sided paper in the scrapbook aisles of the closest A.C. Moore. I believe I ended up making roughly 30 pinwheels. They were extremely easy to make!
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Here's Bean modeling with one of the pinwheels. I was amazed how well it matched her outfit! |
For the birthday banner, I used Our Home From Scratch's tutorial on Birthday Pennant Banner. It took me a bit to figure out how big I wanted the individual pennants to be. Then I needed to figure out how I wanted to print the lettering. I should have just opted for all one color. Oh well, live and learn, and I know better for next time. Still, I loved it. I also used a 9 foot ribbon and strung the entire banner through it.
Birthday Banner, with the Pinwheels in a bucket, and smores pops in an old formula can! |
My baby food jars were the perfect size for my next project, the party favors with Jelly Beans, you know, for the Bean! I used Simply Real Mom's DIY Baby Food Jar Favors and modified them a bit. I first spray painted the lids pink, white and blue (didn't realize my awesome American theme when I started it). Hubby laughed at my inability to correctly use spray paint. I'm not sure anyone noticed (or at least they didn't say anything to me). While those dried, I used nail polish remover to remove any excess glue on the jar itself. I then ran the jars through the dishwasher several times to make sure any chemicals were removed. Once those were dried, I filled each jar with jelly beans. I made small pinwheels (using an eighth size of paper I used for the larger pinwheels), and attached them to ribbons. The ribbons were then glued to the sprayed jar tops. Getting the pinwheels on the ribbons was a fun task. Getting the brad pins through both the pinwheel and both ends of the ribbon (this way, the edges weren't sticking out and could be hidden by the pinwheel and brad pin).
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My instagram photo of my working station! Including my Clover Hill Spiced Apple wine! |
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Completed pinwheel jars, just waiting for jelly beans to fill them up |
A close up of the favors' table |
I also managed to make smores pops. I used microwavable melting chocolate. I heated that until it was melted. Using one bag of marshmallows, I used lollypop sticks you can get at any craft store to dip each in the chocolate. After I let it drip off excess chocolate, I dipped it in crushed graham crackers. Once they dried, which was about 20 minutes later, I put small baggies on each and tied with a colorful twist tie. I also attempted pinwheel cookies like I saw on Food Art Party's blog, but those didn't come out as planned. Oh well.
Pinwheel cookies and Bean's Vegan cake |
Oh, and I made a vegan chocolate cake for the birthday girl since she's got so many food allergies. I used Allrecipes.com Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe. I spent a bunch of time on the icing lettering too. Too bad all she did was mush it between her fingers. She didn't even attempt to eat any of it. Bah!
A view of the party table from behind |
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