Our niece Vera turned one in April and we were finally able to celebrate with her this weekend! I asked Bradley’s mom if I could help with the decorating and started my search for cute ideas a month ago. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone with me to take pictures, so they are less than desirable quality. Nevertheless, here are a few of the projects I worked on for the party and sources:
Outdoor Decorations (inspiration here)
The letters came from Jo-Anns. I spray-painted them and attached them to a board so they wouldn’t get knocked over. I wanted to attach some balloons to it like the inspiration, but my last minute run to the Dollar Tree revealed that they do not sell plain balloons filled with helium as I had thought. At that point, I didn’t have time to find anywhere else to buy some.
Fingerprint Guestbook (inspiration here)
I decided to play off the outside decoration and cut ‘ONE’ out with my Silhouette. I drew strings and had four colors of ink pads for guests to make their ‘balloons’ with. I found a huge bag of toy blocks at Goodwill, so after sorting through them I found a good assortment of colors to spell out Vera’s 1st Birthday. I snagged the fabric V when I saw it at Anthropologie and sent it home with Vera after the party.
Lollipop Bouquet (inspiration here)
I used the biggest circle punch I had to cut different colored tissue paper, then used a small hole punch to make a hole for the lollipop stick.
Favorite Photos Display (inspiration here)
I found the faux grass at Garden Ridge and the Ball jars at Goodwill. Bethany sent me her favorite photos and I printed and cut them out and nestled them in the jars.
Pennant Banner
I used coordinating sheets of scrapbook paper to make a pennant banner for the mantle. I used my Silhouette to get even sized pennants.
Honeycomb Balls and Paper Poms (inspiration here)
I found the honeycomb balls and fans on Amazon and the tissue poms are homemade. Originally, I was thinking of hanging them around a chandelier like the inspiration, but they ended up in the doorway, clustered in the corners to keep some head room in the center.
Flowers
Our yard has done really well this year and the entire bouquet consists of flowers that are blooming in our yard right now.
As for food, the afternoon was very casual with pizza and soda, but I always have fun making a few treats for parties.
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (recipe here) and knock-off Cold Stone Cake Batter Ice Cream (recipe here)
Sausage Balls (recipe here)
Homemade Lemonade (recipe here) and Strawberry Slush Punch (recipe here)
This is the same punch I served at Vera’s baby shower.
I think Vera had a lot of fun with her smash cake and opening gifts. We gave her a First Book of Sushi board book and a wooden sushi set.
I hope you enjoyed the Cake Batter Ice Cream recipe I recreated. We have the same taste in back splash 😉 I have the same tile you do.
The ice cream is very good! This was my first try with your recipe and it turned out very smooth and creamy. The kitchen actually belongs to my in-laws; they just finished redoing the counters and backsplash! Thanks!
I love all this! you did an amazing job and I’m so glad you were able to document it here. Vera loves her sushi book and set. We found out this week that she likes edamame, which goes great with sushi! so maybe she’s a step closer to enjoying sushi with us 🙂 thanks for all your time, effort, and great ideas!