I wanted a place to document my son's Curious George themed First Birthday party... so I created this Blog for that reason. I wish I had documented the planning process better (I'm still learning how to do the blogging thing). So, here's to my first Blog, my first party planned, decorated and photographed by me. And MOST IMPORTANTLY my sweet little pumpkin's First Birthday. (Insert tear drop here) Cheers!!
The Curious George theme worked great for a few reasons... #1 being that we already had several Curious George stuffed monkeys laying around the house as well as books and plenty of things with primary colors on them that I incorporated into the decorations. Free is the way to go. I went rummaging through every toy box in the house to see what I could find.
This table is loaded with fun things, many of which were lying around my house. The Curious George books at the back corners of the tables, the mason jars (jelly jars that had been cleaned out and de-labeled) to hold the color coordinated candies
- Twizzlers, York Pieces, Jelly Beans, Lemon Heads and Hershey Kisses.
My son's toy skate board (center) and some of the napkins I had saved from previous parties throughout the years (solid red and blue). All of which were no additional charge for this particular party.
Just so happened that the tiny cake I bought from the grocery store for my son to "smash" fit perfectly on top of the skateboard. It was not the typical cake stand but it worked great!
The banner was a great idea that I have seen on
Pinterest so many times and everyone at the party loved it! This shows the first 12 months of my son's life. I cut and glued the pictures onto card stock that I had purchased from the craft store. Used clothes pins to hang the pictures on red ribbon and foam numbers on the pins to label the months.
This was another fun (and easy) part of the table decor - A plate I found at the local
Tuesday Morning store that I was going to use for "something" so I bought it weeks before the party ended up being used for nothing more than decoration. And that was totally fine with me - I love this plate and want to hang it on the wall now. SO, instead of putting food on it (because it was just too darn cute), I put the fruit on either side of it. The fruit, watermelon (made into balls with a mellon baller) and pineapple (that I cut into bite sized pieces the night before) matched the color scheme, of course, and I added a few red napkins underneath. These can be eaten with tooth pics (which would be the wallet friendly version) or I saw some really cute cocktail forks at the
Party City store that would have been very cute as well (I decided not to splurge on the cocktail forks and no one noticed).
Another
Pinterest inspired craft that I loved was the pendant banner. I used them in several places but forgot to photograph all of them (I'm still new at this). I cut a few triangles... and I don't know if the picture portrays an accurate view of how different my triangle sizes are but if one or two (or ten) triangles don't all turn out the same size - it will be okay!! See above :) The letters are foam with adhesive on the back (craft store purchase). The numbers that were used on my 0-12 month photo banner came in the same package... yessssss.
Look who showed up in the banana bunch!!! fObviously sticking with the monkey theme, we opted for banana splits instead of the plain old ice cream. Yes, we went bananas... but hey, you only turn 1 once!!
Wrap the plastic wear in solid red napkins (left over from Valentines Day)... Stick them in a decorated cardboard box (this happened to be a gift box that I had saved to store small toys in) after the party the toys went back in the box and I'm still getting great use out of it... added some yellow plates, from
Target, and Curious George thank you cards as decoration (use later to send actual thank you cards to your guests). Simple, easy and under $10.
I made these tissue paper pom poms - they were the most time consuming project but well worth it. Found the how-to toutorial on
google, I'm sure because that is where I find everything. It took some time to figure out how to make them look full and pretty. My tips - #1 the tissue paper has to be square before you start, you have to cut it to make a square (doesn't have to be perfect). #2 use at least 12 sheets of tissue paper for large poms, less for smaller ones. Tie ribbon around them and hang with command strip hooks (best invention ever).
The lanterns were a
Tuesday Morning find and hung in between the tissue paper poms - and I hung these from every opening in the house - doorways, fans, between rooms - anywhere that had enough space for me to stick a command strip, lets just put it that way.
More tissue paper balls and a lantern hanging above the highchair (from a fan, not pictured). He loved the decorations and actually played with one of the puffs after the party was over. He just ripped it to shreds and it was so fun!!! I could have just given him that as a gift and he would have been a happy camper. After the party I used the tissue paper balls in his room as decoration - they sit on top of his bookcase (out of reach). He lights up when he sees them, either because he wants to play with them and rip them all to shreds or because it reminds him of the best day of his life... I may never know.
More pictures from the party:
We asked guest to write a note in this Curious George book as a keep sake for our son, above.
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| Banana Split Bar |
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Owen
Happy Birthday to you!!!
