Being that my kid is almost TWO I figured it was about dang time I blogged her FIRST birthday party. With a large family and my Beany having tons of baby friends, a backyard BBQ was perfect for our celebration. And, when I say “our” celebration I mean Brad, The Bean and I. We were ready to celebrate SURVIVING the first year just as much as The Bean was ready to celebrate turning a whole year old! I’m not going to lie, we had an extremely rough first 6 months as parents so it was definitely time to party!
Before I get into the design details, I want to give a big thanks to my BFF Jen & her husband Scott for opening their home for our party! Jen also helped me with the graphic design elements as well as setting up my master plan! Jen and her brother Rob photographed all the details as well as our family and friends and I am so thankful to have them. If you’d like to read about the party in Jen’s own words, you can read about it {HERE}.
So let’s talk concept. I’m a dog lover…especially of little dogs and what better dog to incorporate into a BBQ where you’ll be serving hot dogs than a wiener dog? Browsing the internet for ideas, I found a onesie where the silhouette of a dog was applied to it. This worked perfectly for a wiener dog and the fact that the dog’s body wrapped around from her front to her back was adorable! I had my Mom do the sewing since my sewing skills topped out in the 7th grade making scrunchies.
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And a first birthday party just isn’t the same without a tutu in my opinion. My Mom sewed that as well. Look at the ribbon detail on the edges…it was A LOT of work and she pulled it off beautifully. And look at those chubby baby legs…I nibble on them everyday!
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I wanted to make sure that there was plenty to do for the kiddos and bubbles are always a hit with the little ones. I came up with the concept of “Bean’s Bubble Bar” and set up a little station with the jars of bubbles. Each jar had it’s own wand I made from pipe cleaners. There was a bubble machine blowing bubbles off the table for some extra fun! The bubbles were loved by the little ones…but weren’t so loved by Jen and Scott…who had their grass killed under the bubble bar! Wooops, sorry guys. Luckily a little grass seed fixed the problem.
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Another thing kids just seem to love is little furniture. I love it myself but it is just so hard to find cute, unique pieces at affordable prices. My Aunt Gerri is great at finding treasures at thrift stores and I believe these used to belong to a school in her area. She sent me a photo of them and asked me if I wanted them. They looked nothing like this at the time so I told her as long as I could do a makeover on them…I’d take em! I’ll follow up with a post with the before and afters later. Mom and I sewed some pillows using the same fabric as Beany’s onesie. Accessories…just as important for little people too!
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This wrought iron chandelier looked so great hanging from the tree. The wind would blow the ribbons making it look so whimsical. It was originally brown and rusty but a couple colors in spray paint and it was brought a new life. Much more kid-ified.
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I decided to try and make tissue pom poms myself. I did NOT like this project. Long, tedious and hurt my fingers!
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Favors for the adults were chocolate dipped pretzel rods with white sprinkles. Favors for the kids were custom made coloring books with homemade dog bone crayons. I really used the fabric as part of the theme just as much as the wiener dog. I used the the teal, aqua, plum and olive green all throughout the party as well as the flower motif. I painted un-finished wooden flowers and used them on both the chandelier as well as this flower pot filled with candy lollipops.
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Toni Skog, my BFF’s Mom, makes the most DELICIOUS cupcakes. I was originally going to hire someone to make the cupcake cake but then Toni wanted to make it so I abliged. She came up with this amazing realistic dog head made from marzipan! I think the direction she went with it was far superior to the image I had visualized. Isn’t the face and bow so sweet? And shouldn’t Toni be going into business with her amazing work? I have Bob and Lindsay Skog to thank as well for this cake….it was a joint effort and the results were SPECTACULAR!!!
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She made a separate smash cake for My Beans and even made me a custom “1″ candle since I couldn’t find one that matched the cake! Now that’s the kind of detail that is so important to me. When it was cake time the party girl didn’t put much of a show on…she wasn’t getting as messy as I would have liked. (That’s the LAST time you’ll hear me say that). So we placed the cake on the ground for all the other kiddos to take a stab at. I’m guessing their parents were cursing my name at the time….actually I’m quite sure of it! Prior to the smashing of the cake, it was displayed with two wooden dogs I painted and dressed up with tutus to match the Birthday girl.
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The Hot Dog buffet was setup indoors complete with all the fixins. Do you recognize those Manzanita branches? They are great to re-use. With new decorations added to them, they can breathe a new look into each party. You can see them at my Baby Shower {HERE} and at another shower I threw {HERE}.
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The day was a blast and it was so much fun to spend it with family, old friends and new friends we’ve made since Sydney was born.
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