First of all, I have to say that a birthday for me is generally not a one-time event…it can easily be a couple of parties to make up the whole “birthday”. I think this comes from being in a family that would have a party on each of the grandparent’s side and then our own little celebration on the day.
I was so excited to have a girl (not that I don’t love my little man) I have always wanted to go all out on the girly theme…so that’s exactly what we did.
For the beginning of our celebrations, we were visiting family in Utah for Christmas and my baby girl’s first birthday is four days after Christmas, we decided to have a party while we were there. I made royal icing roses before we left for our trip and kept them in a shoe box lined with tissue paper until it was time to use them.
I also insanely decided to make a banner for her the day before we left too just for some more pizzazz. No I don’t have a machine to help me cut out letters so I did it the old-fashioned way…printing out letters on my computer and then cutting them out by hand.
I did do one clever thing with the banner though and that’s to put eyelets in all of the holes I made. This way, my banner is totally re-usable and if I so desire, I can trade out letters for a different color or whatever! I glittered each letter with fine white glitter which was a nice little mess but I think it gave the sign another needed dimension. I also added the circles with little faux flowers with “gemstone” brads in the middle as spacers when I realized that it’s kind of tricky to read when there’s no spaces (this came from looking at a note my 4-year-old was writing as I was making this that had exactly the same amount of space b e t w e e n e v e r y l e t t e r and I realized I was doing the same thing).
I decorated the cupcakes the night before the party (which was Christmas) while everyone was watching a movie so they were totally ready the next day when we were ready to set up. I choose to do them in lemon and filled them with raspberry and then chocolate with chocolate pudding (I hid them in the laundry room…it seemed to work to keep them out of little children’s prying fingers and little lips).
All I did was what I call the classic “twirl” with a large star tip, sprinkled with sugar crystals, plopped a rose on top and finished with a leaf for a little more color (I was considering monochromatic but I think it would have been a little less appealing with a bright pink leaf).
I arranged the cupcakes in the shape of a “1” a little trick I learned from my friend Charisse.
That party was very fun. I love having parties with family, they always keep things interesting. :)
For the real day which was three days later and the day after we got home from a VERY long drive. We set up the sign over my girl’s chair and then I made homemade buttermilk pancakes for dinner. After dinner she got to open a gift from us. Not too elaborate but I was exhausted!
Our little birthday girl!
Hubby also brought her home some roses…she didn’t get it but maybe someday she will. The vase I had was a little short so I had the brilliant idea of filling it with river rocks…I really like the effect.
The next celebration we had with our friends who live here in AZ. I actually did make a cake for this with some of the better roses left from her UT party. I also colored a bit of icing and made the darker roses for some higher contrast.
Here’s a view from above…
I need more practice I know but I thought it was pretty cute.
I really thought the one candle on the top was pretty funny. I could not find one single “1” candle at any store I happened to go to. I wonder if everyone was putting 2011 on their cakes that week or something!
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