Description
I chose the theme for Greyson's first birthday in May 2012. It was so much fun designing, creating & planning this special day. We celebrated Greyson's birthday in Dec. 2012 & it was such a fun party to plan!
Design Inspiration
I LOVED how popular the Sock Monkey's were becoming when I was pregnant with Greyson. I had his newborn photos taken with 2 adorable sock monkey hats & just knew that would have to be the theme of his first party.
Decorating Style
I like a lot of modern styles, but mine ends up being a little more homey & shabby chic. I like mixing our lifestyle into our home & since we own horses, there is a rustic room dedicated to that. I also like elegant rooms that are crisp, clean & have fun details. This party had a LOT of little details that made it what I was hoping it would be.
Project Details
I got lots of fun ideas from Pinterest! It provided most of the ideas for this party. I used brown, red, white & teal as the main colors & since my family knew I was using sock monkeys, we ended up getting lots of cute little monkeys as gifts before the party. I loved making his name banner out of burlap & one for his cake out of sticky letters & card stock. I used an adorable printable from Etsy & added vintage toys to the decor that I borrowed from my mother in law! I was able to borrow lots of items from friends, family & was blessed with lots of help from each =)
Favorite Items
I loved using the cute straws I got off Etsy. & writing everyones names on the banners. We don't usually drink coke out of glass bottles, so that was fun for us. I also loved the Hot Chocolate bar & all the cute peppermint stirrers we made. We made most of the food ourselves, but the cake & cupcakes came from a cute little coffee shop near our home-- Pell City Coffee Company. They were delicious & I loved that their colors, went with our theme! They were baked in fun brown cupcake lines & came in teal boxes, that I ended up using on the table!
Advice
With this many details, it was a lot of work. Not so much in the setting up, but in the craft part of the planning. I made a few things myself like his birthday hat, banners, tissue pom pom's & used lots of signs for the decor that I added felt letters to. That stuff took awhile to make...The monthly photo banner was a year in the making! I knew from the time I took his first newborn picture that I would use this idea for a banner at his first birthday. There are some things that I planned so far in advance that helped make it easier to execute...it was time consuming so working on it a little at a time over the course of several months made the process much easier. Most of our family lives out of town, so we decided to have a BIG first birthday party instead of waiting until he was older. I know he won't remember this first one other than seeing the pictures, but it will most likely be the only party my whole family gets to be a part of. Greyson was born on Dec. 9th & since I figured he wouldn't understand what a birthday was at this point anyway, we made the decision to celebrate his birthday 2 days after Christmas. Everyone was in town & it was the perfect opportunity to include everyone! I probably won't do as much for the rest of his birthdays, but this one was extra special & I had an amazing time planning it!