Tuesday, May 31, 2011

My Darling Girl is One

I can't believe my baby girl is one. It honestly feels like I brought her home yesterday. And yet, somehow we just celebrated her first birthday with family and friends. How does that happen? How do they go from this:

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to this:

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in the blink of an eye?

She's not only the baby of the family, she's also the girl, with two older brothers. So, needless to say, this was a fun party for me to plan. We have called her ladybug since the very beginning, so it wasn't hard to decide where to start. Plus she was born in the spring. Plus, she's a girl. So flowers, and ladybugs and butterflies, let's have them all! And it had to be vintage feeling. I warn you, lots of pictures follow.

Let's start with decorations. I knew when I saw it on Ruffled that I had to make a new birthday banner for the girl. If you haven't seen it, then go here and download your own for free! It's so beautiful. I sewed it into some bias tape and looped the ends for easy hanging.

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I also made one with her name and I plan to hang it in her room now that the party is over.

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This one I sewed into wider bias tape and trimmed with tiny red ric rac. I love ric rac these days. Anything at all that reminds me of my grandma, I'm just a sucker for.

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I tried to be mindful with my decorations and not spend a bunch of money on things that would just be thrown out by Tuesday. So instead of balloons, I bought and hung these eyelet lanterns which will also go into her room.

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I'm going to try my hardest to salvage and re-use in the future the tissue flowers courtesy of Martha and the ruffled streamers courtesy of the Made tutorial found here.

Drinks were served in little reusable mason jars bought for .30. I did use paper plates and napkins because I just couldn't resist the flower plates and polka dotted napkins I found. They perfectly matched the runner I made for the table out of a vintage flat sheet and scraps of red and white polka dot fabric. I did "splurge" on striped paper straws too. They're just too pretty.

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I did need to buy her one special balloon. It's tradition for the first birthdays in our house, ever since my firstborn fell in love with the birthday balloon friends bought him. And since it was the only balloon, I thought, why not make it big?

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On to the food. We had butterflies and ladybugs and flowers. No really we did. Don't believe me? See for yourself!

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Butterflies



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Ladybugs


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more ladybugs



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flowers

See? The Babybel idea I found here. I tweaked it by using decorating gel for the dots and eyes. And the ladybug pretzels I've seen all over the web. The butterflies were my idea, just crescent dough cut out with a cookie cutter. Press a cocktail sausage into the center and bake. Viola!

We also had finger sandwiches served up on the seriously girly three tiered server I got one year at high tea with my mom and grandma before I knew I was having a girl.

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Even the nuts got the floral treatment.

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And then there's the cake. The cake my incredible sister in law (who was the one representing family at the party) baked and iced and decorated with me. I'm so glad she came and not just because I put her to work. Ha!

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The original idea can be found here. Instead of piping the ladybugs though, I just took the gel pen to red candymelts. I love how it turned out.

Here are a few bonus shots of the party and the party girl. I love how her shoes and headband matched the party decor. Recognize the shoes from this post?

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My sweet girl.

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I love her.

Her party hat I made myself the day of the party because I realized I had totally forgotten it. I took an old sports party hat apart and used it as a template on cardstock and cut it out. Then I sprayed it with spray adhesive and when it was tacky pressed some scrap fabric to it and trimmed the excess. I stapled it into hat form, hot glued ric rac and added elastic. Oh, and I love it.



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The party favors were little versions of my butterfly cuff, with velcro for the bigger sisters and elastic for the little sisters. There's a tutorial coming up for them, stay tuned.

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Her present from Grandma and Grandpa.

So, that's it. What will more than likely be the last of the first birthdays I throw for my wee ones. It's a good thing I enjoyed it so much. And I think the birthday girl did too.






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6 comments:

Lauren Ellsworth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ellsworth Designs said...

I'm such a sucker for parties. This actually made me tear up. Can you throw my next party with hat included? HAHA! LOVE YA!

Kristin (Book Sniffers Anonymous) said...

Such a cute party. I love all the little details that you put into it :o)

Leslie said...

How cute! I absolutely LOVE the butterflies and ladybug cheeses! And that last picture is the best! Pinning straight away!

aStarToSteerHerBy said...

So cute! I love how all of the food fit with the theme. All to often the food is forgotten in the midst of the decorations. Your details on the food were just lovely!

Unknown said...

Beautiful job but there can be second and third ........ Enjoy your family and make memories
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