a la Mo

Inspiration for parties, themes, and color palettes can come to me from anywhere. In the case of this 365 Days on Earth first birthday party, the inspiration was from a children’s song. The idea first came to me while I was listening to Hullabaloo’s album, Shy Kid Blues. I just knew I had to create a first birthday party theme based on Steve’s rollicking song about a year in the life entitled 365 Days on Earth.
I knew that I wanted the concept for this party to center around globes and to include lots of quotes directly from the song. When I started pulling together a visual inspiration board, it became clear that I wanted to pair the globes with some modern black and white elements and maybe some hexagon patterning. I love how the blues, yellows, and greens of the globe came together with the black and white.
Shelves
While the shelves in my dining room usually house my cookbook collection and family mementos, I couldn’t help styling them especially for this party. I lined the back of the shelves with black and white striped paper before filling them with lots of fun decorations. My hand-painted globe was joined by a small collection of other globes in different colors and sizes. Photos of the birthday boy and coordinating party decor rounded out the shelf display.
Dessert table
Again, I used bold black and white stripes to set the backdrop of the dessert table. Layered on top of the stripes was a balloon garland to bring in some color. Every party needs a cake, and we had a stunning 2-tiered beauty. Jenny Wenny cakes managed to incorporate the stripes, world map, and a cool hexagons honeycomb pattern into one delicious cake. The crowning touch was a laser-cut acrylic topper boasting the theme of 365 Days on Earth. Incorporating custom cookies into my events has become a requirement for me. I’m always looking for unique ways to display the beautiful cookie creations, so this time I decided to hang them on an ornament stand. The idea was to make the Earth cookies look more like an actual globe and I love the results. NatSweets made so many fun cookie designs using my invitation design and the song lyrics. We also had some hand-painted globe gourmet apples. Roni’s Sugar Creations always takes care of the details and these apples were no exception. A little bit of glittery sparkle and the pretty striped bows finished them off beautifully.
Cake smash
I love a good cake smash and I was really looking forward to seeing my son’s first taste of cake. The stage was set with some party streamers, a little ONE banner, and the same vintage wood highchair that we used for my daughter’s cake smash 5 years ago. Although I outsourced the other sweets for the party, I baked Declan’s little smash cake- banana cake with cream cheese frosting. He was pretty cautious when it came time to eat it. He seemed to like it, but I don’t think he was thrilled with all of the people watching him.
Guest tables
Oversized engineering prints are one of my favorite ways to incorporate my printables into the party decor. This time I also used this product to create custom paper table runners for the guest tables. I’ve always loved the trend of the first birthday chalkboard statistics (height, weight, nickname, favorites, skills, words, etc.). I took this concept and turned all those fun facts into a unique table runner. I printed 2 on a 24″x36″ color engineering print and simply cut it down the middle. Blooms in yellow and white sat in the middle of both tables for the guests to enjoy.
Favor table
Favors can sometimes be an afterthought for me, but this time I knew what I wanted to gift to our guests right away. It was important to me to send everyone home with some goodies from Hullabaloo since the band’s song inspired the party theme. Hullabaloo CD’s and Shy Kid Blues Coloring books were the perfect items to include from the band. I packaged them up in little black baskets and finished them off with crayons, globe punching bags, #1 balloon wands, and black and white lollipops.
 

Our current home has just 2 bedrooms, so when we found out we were having a boy I knew I wouldn’t be putting together a nursery just for him. A shared boy and girl room seemed like a challenge, but I put a lot of thought into making it a space that my girly girl would love while still keeping some boy-friendly areas. My daughter chose the theme, but then I took over from there. She wanted mermaids, so I generalized the theme to make it a little more gender neutral. We went with Under the Sea… mermaids for her and whales for him!
We painted the room a beautiful light aqua color. Most of the furniture was left from my daughter’s original nursery and we added a mini crib for the new baby. The bedding and accessories are a mix of handmade, Target, Pottery Barn, Tiny Prints, and a couple DIY projects. Some of my favorite detail are listed below.
For her:

Mermaid Scale coffee filter wall art
Big girl bedding of mermaid sheets and a wave quilt
DIY bubble chandelier
Coral, the handmade mermaid doll
“A Mermaid Sleeps Here” pillow (see below to make your own!)

For him:

Navy and aqua quilt that was handmade by my aunt
Personalized name pillow including all of his birth stats
Wood California rattle
Customized whale canvas with the quote “Dream Big, Little One”
Handmade wood rocking horse that was lovingly crafted by my uncle
“You Are Loved by Me” watercolor painting from my baby sprinkle decor

The watercolor elements seen throughout the sprinkle décor were inspired by the beautiful Oh Baby invitations. Working with the color palette of sea glass green and gray was an effective way to carry the simple theme from the tablescape, to the florals, to the desserts.
Although I am an amateur painter at best, I attempted to create several of the watercolor items myself including the backdrop to the dessert table, painted paper fans, dip-dyed cloth napkins, and the circle garlands. It turns out that abstract watercolor painting is very relaxing for me and I really enjoyed it. The Oh Baby photo display included some more watercolor painting along with b&w photos of babies from many generations of both sides of our family. Perhaps those family photos gave the guests a glimpse of what our baby boy will look like.
Sweets are always a big part of designing an event for me. The dessert table for the sprinkle boasted a gorgeous, 2-tiered watercolor cake with white wafer paper roses. Little details can make such a big impact and I loved having the “Oh Boy!” engraved cake server and personalized napkins right by the cake. Hand-painted macarons and passion fruit cream tarts adorned with white chocolate pearls rounded out the sweet nibbles. Also, I can’t forget the monogrammed sugar cookies that served as edible place cards for each table setting. Function and beauty at their best!
One of my favorite elements at the sprinkle was the framed watercolor “You Are Loved By Me” painting that was lovingly created by my friend Mollie of The Prints and the Pea. The quote is shortened from a song written by a favorite children’s band of our family called Hullabaloo. The simple lyrics to the song can be summed up by, “You are good, you are strong, and you are loved by me”. Such a beautiful sentiment that I think all children should hear and believe about themselves.

My goal for this shower was an under-the-sea vibe that wasn’t too juvenile, and I wanted a feminine look without being too pink and frilly. The basic color palette of light and dark aqua along with coral pink was rounded out by grey, purple, and golden yellow. We tried to incorporate decor that could be reused in the baby’s nursery after the shower.

A Sesame Street inspired brunch party with a basic color palette of golden yellows, gray, and white. Inserting the characters into the decor added pops of red and blue as well.

The Big One