Party *almost* Perfection!

Oh, how I LOVE to plan a party. I love ALL THE DETAILS. I love thinking of a color scheme. I love thinking of a theme. I love finding little things that go perfectly with both.

My sweet baby turned ONE on February 5th. Since we are new to Nashville, we decided it was a good excuse to have people over. Some new friends and some old. It was a great afternoon that turned into evening. I still cannot believe it has been a year. Just where DID the time go?

Laurie Carpenter from Laurie Carpenter Photography was such a doll. She journaled the entire night in pictures and we are so grateful to her. If it weren't for Laurie, I wouldn't have ONE photograph of the evening. She is super talented and blended right in. In fact, she knew some of our guests! Such a small world here in Nashville, I love it!

Even though I started planning this party and ordering custom items off of etsy in early January, I still forgot some things. That bugs me. I forgot to put the topper on the cake. It sat beside the cake all night. Oops. I also forgot to put the mini cake in the cakestand. It sat in the fridge all night so when it came time for K to bite into it, it was pretty cold and hard. Oops. I ordered this ADORABLE party hat that matched K's dress but forgot to put it on her. It hung on the back of her bedroom door all night. Oops.

The upside? K was happy, and we had a great celebration. My baby is now a toddler. And she's happy and smiles and laughs. Thank you God!

Here is my sweet girl in her birthday outfit. She is VERY busy, ha, and won't stand still, so pics are hard to come by these days! She sure did like those pinwheels! Her Mimi is holding onto her and can usually be found at Kendall's side. K LOVES her Mimi (my mom) and so do I!

Here is one of Kendall's party invites. This is the more 'adult' invite, ha ha. I got them at minted.com. Have you ever been to their site? Gorgeous stuff. The paper they use is like butta. Love it! (sorry for the bad pic, it was off of my iphone)

Here is the other invite that went out for the party. We had a mix of people at the party, some guests with children, and some with no children, so we had a mix of invites. This one was a little more kid friendly. (NOTESbyRedLetter on etsy- her stuff is top notch and sooo cute!)

Here is K after she chowed on her mini cake! Her pinwheel bib and birthday outfit were made by Monica Bellard (took@lusfiber.net) and the fun mustache sticks are from whimzycreations on etsy.

I'm a sucker for personalized napkins. I made them just generic enough to be able to use them for a future birthday party for Kendall but just personal enough to be fun!

Here is a sampling of the cupcakes! They were a mix of Puffy Muffin and Publix Bakery. The pinwheel toppers are from gigglesapu, the penguin toppers and cupcake wrappers from PartyTreats (both etsy) and the black and white candles from The Party Poodle on ebay.

Here is the main cake topper (that never actually made it onto the cake). Isn't she sweet? The balloons and the number are removable so that we can use her again in the future. You just order the new balloon colors and number color and pop them right on her. Maybe next year she will actually make it onto the cake, ha! She is from bthanari on etsy. You should see her wedding cake toppers- INSANELY GORGEOUS!

Here is the birthday cake (with the cake topper NEXT to it, ugh!) It came from Puffy Muffin here in Nashville and it was YUMMO! Even the fondant tasted like marshmallow. The large glass jars were borrowed from my bathroom decor (HomeGoods) and they were filled with ornaments that I got at Michaels, 90% off. The lime green beads were tree garland from the Christmas clearance too. The green silverware buckets were from the $1 bin at you guessed it...Michaels.

Here is Kendall's mini cake topper and friends. How cute are they? Of course I got them off of etsy (peanutbutterbandit and bdbworld)

My dining buffet was adorned with custom pinwheels from etsy that said "Kendall's First Birthday" (polkadotpinwheels on ebay), mini rubber duckies for the baby party favors (mrrmomsattic02 on ebay), an empty container that was supposed to have black and white jelly beans (alas, another fogotten item in the kitchen) and the cake stand for the mini cake with the topper inside (the cake that got left in the fridge all afternoon, sigh....) I bought the chalkboard crowns and the wooden '1' from Michaels and superglued them together.

Here are the other party favors: fun lime green striped socks for kiddos and yummy lime green and silver tubes of 'vanilla frosting' scented body lotion, bubble bath, and shower gels. I got them both at Michaels. The bath products were in the clearance bin for $.88. The socks were in the dollar bin! I just put them in cellophane bags with cute ribbon. All from Micheals too!

I bought the customized fun tags from Expressionary.com

THE FYI:

-You don't need to buy a 'party in a box', use your own creativity!

-With sites like etsy.com, if you can dream it, someone can make it.

-If they don't show the item in the color you want, convo them and ask, they can usually accommodate you.

-Invest in things that you can use for a future party. With my party base colors black and white, I can interchange the lime green from this year for a different color next year.....

-Sometimes I look at the clearance bin to see what is available and draw my color or theme inspiration from there....whatever works, right? It helps the budget too!

-BIG cakes are expensive, get a smaller cake and add cupcakes to help with the number of guests you are feeding.

-Be creative with food options. We did Chic-fil-a and it was a big hit!

-Plan activities for kids. We had penguin coloring books, and animal puppets and masks for the children to decorate. It also helped that we had 2 sweet 16 year old babysitters to corral the kids in the bonus room upstairs.

-Consider hiring a photographer or designate a friend to take pictures so that the pressure is not on YOU!

-Last but not least, wine and beer for the adults never hurts. =)