Wednesday 28 September 2011

Baby Boy's 1st Birthday Party

My darling little boy turned One last week.  I have no idea where that year went.  He is the most delightful little soul and is loving, funny and sweet and best of all, a real Mama's boy!


I have had a LOT of fun over the past couple of months planning his birthday party.  I possibly need to get back to my day job of events as it's quite clear I have too much time on my hands!!!

I found inspiration from a couple of lovely blogs.  Firstly, the beautiful Eat, Drink, Chic blog - here and here.  And the main source of inspiration was from the gorgeous Rubyellen over at Mycakies who held a Breakfast 1st Birthday Party for her third baby girl Soul.  See her gorgeous party here.  


I also got a lot of inspiration from images on Pinterest.  Too many to link!


I went with a theme of Grey, Yellow & White and started by making decorations.  I went to Spotlight when they had a huge 40% off fabric sale and found some cheap but cheerful fabric and made some very simple bunting.








Then I made tissue paper Pom Poms a la Martha Stewart - see tutorial here.  I have adored these Pom Poms for a long time and when my lovely friend Renae made them for her little boy's birthday earlier this year, I knew I had to try to replicate them.  They were simple but fiddly.  I made about 20 of them!






I also made a string of black & white photos which you can see in the background of the food bench.  











Instead of Goody Bags, I decided to Cupcakes in a Jar - also inspired by Rubyellen.  Check out her tutorial here.  I used recycled organic baby apple jars - they are tiny but cute!  The cake was my go to vanilla butter cake and the frosting was one of the Magnolia Bakery recipes which I found here.  I topped them with homemade thank you tags which matched my invitations as well as some Devine Twine from and a leftover swatch of bunting fabric & attached a wooden teaspoon.













I designed the menu to be very easy on the actual day so that I could spend the morning with my kids rather than in the kitchen so I made most of the food ahead of time.


I made these Donna Hay Pancetta Cups the week before and froze them.  They reheated brilliantly and although I don't eat them, I've been told they were delicious! They went in 5 minutes flat! Lucky I had a few trays of them.  I will post the recipe and photos of making them at a later date.





Blinis with Smoked Salmon, sour cream & chives - adapted from this recipe.




Sweet pikelet stacks - inspired by this photo.  Recipe adapted from here. These were the hit of the day. I made about 150 pikelets and it took AGES.  I should have made 400!!!  I adore the syrup jug I bought from Emerald & Ella.









The cereal Bar was cute but not as popular as I thought and I seriously over-catered in this area.  My homemade maple muesli was a hit (see details here) and the kids liked the rice puffs and O's but I had LOADS leftover so I gave little bags of leftover muesli to the people who loved it.






Little fruit cups.







Recycled Italian soda bottles filled with milk, water & cloudy apple juice.









For the birthday cake I used the same mixture as the cakes in jars but with an adaptation of a  Donna Hay cream cheese frosting. I shaved Green & Blacks white chocolate on top.  It was yummy!!!  I topped the cake with some homemade mini bunting.  Idea inspired by this picture.




Apart from being a pretty day, it was a lovely, fun day and my gorgeous little boy did very well!!! He wasn't loving being passed around so I tried to cuddle him as much as possible and he had fun playing on the floor with his little baby friends.  He coped well with the happy birthday singing and straight after the cutting of the cake, he fell asleep in my mum's arms despite the very noisy room!!!!


I had fun and my toddler and husband did too.  There were lots of kids and wonderful friends and adoring family members there creating a great morning for all.  We are very lucky to have such a little treasure in our lives and I had a lot of fun creating a special day to pay tribute to him.


Love Amy xoxo



21 comments:

  1. Oh Amy!!!!! It is just gorgeous and well thought out. If imitation is the highest form of flattery I hope you won't mind me stealing ideas from you in the future! A gorgeous party. Xxx

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  2. Omg Amy you are SO clever!! That all looks so wonderful & professional.
    I'm so glad you all had a lovely day.
    Xx
    S

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  3. Oh my goodness, it looks soooo beautiful! I love the yellow and white colour theme and I bet I could probably demolish twelve of those pancake stacks before hitting the cereal bar! I love the idea of serving drinks in old school milk bottles too - beautiful! You went to so much effort and it looks like it definitely paid off xxx

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  4. Stunning! Especially love the cake in a jar and the soda bottles with straws - so adorable.

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  5. The Little Red Hen28 September 2011 at 20:04

    You are missing your calling as a magazine stylist, I think! Also: watch out Martha Stewart. This is quite incredible. All of it. Well done you & happy birthday Mr 1:)

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  6. What a beautiful party! I'm planning a party for my little boy's 1st birthday in a few weeks but I'm sure it won't look nearly as good as this one!

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  7. Thanks so much lovely ladies. I had a BALL doing all of this! And Cat, imitate away, that's what I did! As you can see none of these things were my ideas - I got all of my inspiration from other creative types and just brought them together!

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  8. Wow Amy! What an amazing job you did!! Everything looks perfect, and so yummy :) Your boys are so lucky!

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  9. This is so stunning. Whenever I see something like this I am so inspired by how much work has been put into it. Especially when compared to my far more lazy birthday making!

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  10. OMG how beautiful and stylish is this!!!! Gorgeous!!!!!

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  11. You are so clever! This is so inspiring.

    Poor Pacman, his first birthday consisted of a backyard BBQ and some badly decorated (but yummy) cupcakes.

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  12. It all looks so good! The food, the decorations and that bench is amaaaazing, envious! What a lovely way to celebrate.

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  13. I am in awe of you!!! I think you are such an inspiration!

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  14. Hi,

    Really awesome party find. I'm sure party lovers especially party planners received such great ideas to incorporate in their list of to do's.

    Have a nice day...!!

    kids birthday party ideas long island

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  15. Hey, this is so great post. These party inspirations are so lovely. I am in love with theme party. Well, I have decided to use frozen theme for my daughter’s 5th birthday party but I would keep these ideas for her next parties. You know we will be throwing her 5th birthday party at most popular Los Angeles event venues.

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