Indiana's 1st birthday pt. 2

I also think I need to clarify that Indy is 20 months now, this party was a LONG time ago!  So you'll forgive me if the descriptions or instructions are short handed.   Here are some more goodies that I created for his bday!

Party Hats!  This as the most difficult craft out of all the ones I did for the party.  I used the all-knowing Martha Stewart's how-to on these which you can find here.  The only thing I changed was that I didn't use vellum for the tassel, I just cut a series of 2 inch cuts into the same piece of paper and rolled it over to form the tassel.

Here is Gracie and Indy's cousin Olivia (showing her sassy side) wearing the hats.  The kids found them too cumbersome to wear, so they were mostly just decoration/a give away.

I made a few extra balloons and put them on the cupcakes I also made for the party.  These were the "adult cupcakes" which were double chocolate.  The kids and Indy got Eggless Carrot cake because he had an allergic reaction to eggs a week or so prior to the party.  If you need the recipe, e mail me!  It's delicious!

Finally, not pictured are the give aways!  I am so heartbroken that I didn't get pictures of this!  I had been saving glass baby food jars for about a month for this give away.  I stripped the labels and made rectangles out of the same card stock the hats and birthday banner was made out of.  I cut the rectangles with patterned edge scissors and wrote "Thanks! Love, Indy" on them and hot glued them onto the jars.   I bought a bag of organic potting soil and a pack of organic green bean seeds.  At the party, as an activity, I had all the kids, with the help of parents, plant a seed in their pots to take home.   While we were doing the activity, I asked the kids that each time they watered the seed to please pray for Indiana and for his safety and future.  I thought this was a lot more fun and meaningful than a bag of candy that half of the guests are too young to eat!

I really enjoyed putting together the party.  I only wish I had taken more pictures so that Indiana can look back in a few years to see how special his 1st bday was because none of this mattered one bit to him!  So make sure your cameras are fully charged and that plenty of your adult guests bring their cameras, too!

Indiana's 1st birthday pt. 1

I'm both excited disappointed when I think about starting this series on Indiana's 1st birthday.  Excited because I really did hand make EVERYTHING for his birthday, and it all turned out pretty amazing.  Disappointed because I didn't take many pictures!  I hadn't planned on documenting everything, but would once in a while ask my husband to take a few pictures of my process.  But the most disappointing part is that my camera died half way through the party so I only got a few pictures of everything set up.  I'll try my best to describe my process in making everything, but no guarantees.  If you have questions about a specific thing, please email me!

When I started planning Indiana's birthday, I thought I wanted a real theme.  But then I quickly realized that he isn't really interested in anything.  I'm not gonna push "Where the Wild Things Are" on my 1 year old who is NOTHING at all like Max just because I wanted to see him in a fuzzy white outfit, sporting a crown on his head.  So instead, I just chose a few colors that I liked and did a lot of fun crafts to decorate the place.  I think it turned out pretty good.

This is the only picture I have of the invitations and it's the draft!  I kept it basically the same, but turned the background of his picture into a rectangle with rounded corners.  I had pictures of Indy in his Halloween costume printed at Kinkos on regular paper in 3x5 which made them really simple to work with.  I bought packages of plain greeting cards and envelopes at the Craft store which are really useful.  I cut balloon shapes and got a star punch for the "1" balloon and on the inside of the card was a brown cut out with all of the info for the wedding in gold writing.

A birthday banner.  I made these out of card stock that happened to be on sale when I went to Michael's, looking for inspiration.  I used the inside of a roll of duct-tape to trace circles onto the card stock and cut them out.  Then using a chisel-tipped gold paint maker, I wrote out "Happy Birthday Indiana" in individual letters.

I added a border around each letter, because they just looked too empty.  Then I punched holes on either side of the circle and threaded them onto some Jute String (which is one of my most favorite things!)  I also taped the back of each letter so they wouldn't turn or slide.  Make sure your strings are the appropriate length according to how you want to hang them.  I hung mine on top of one another, so the string that said, "Indiana" was the longest.

Details up close.

My second undertaking was some bunting.  I bought a pack of colored tissue paper  and used only the colors that worked with the theme, the rest I saved for Christmas (which was only a month away, Indy's bday fell on Thanksgiving eve last year).  I cut rectangles to about 4x2" with the idea that they would be folded in half.

This is very simple, all you need is colored tissue paper, string, scissors and glue sticks.

1. Cut rectangles according to how large you want your bunting squares to be
2.  Cut a length of string with at least a foot on either end that will be used to tie to a post or wherever you wish to hang your bunting string
2.  Create a pattern with the tissue rectangels
3.  Fold the tissue in half with the string in the crease and apply glue to both sides as well as on the string to ensure that the tissue stays and doesn't slide.  Glue sticks are best for this task as liquid glue will run and make the tissue look wilted and wrinkly.
4. Leave about a 6" gap between each square & repeat!

The finished product!  Store the banner by wrapping it around something tall and round.  I used a few wine bottles.  This will keep your squares from being folded or wrinkled and will also keep the entire banner from getting tangled in itself.  I made two 15-ft banners  and they really made the party seem a lively!