This first post is going to be about my darling son Zain's first birthday party. I planned it myself from the start to the end and my amazing better half obviously financed it ( like most of the other things I plan ). Zain is literally the apple of our eyes. He was born on November 5th, 2013. It is such a cliche` but the moment we saw him, we fell in love with him and our lives changed forever. A child brings a joy in your life, like no other thing in this world can. The most fascinating thing for me was the transformation of a helpless tiny baby I held when he was born, to the little person that he is now, with a strong will, who knows what he wants and if he doesn't get it, well then we are in for a little tantrum. The amazing thing is that, this happened within a span of a year. When I look back, in some ways this year went by in a whiz but in other ways, there were so many firsts that it seems like everyday was a new adventure.
It all started with the "Teddy Bear" theme, inspired by the teddy bear I bought Zain from the 'Build-A-Bear Workshop'. Zain really didn't like stuffed toys apart from this bear, which he learned to hug and carry around( not obsessively, Thank God). For the birthday invitation cards, we went with TinyPrints.com. I chose a card, customized it with a couple of photographs of Zain in his teddy bear night suit and a balloon backdrop inspired by Pinterest.
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| Card Front ( I took out the details ) |
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| Back of the Card |
Next came the task of party favors for all the kids who were coming to the birthday party. Most of my friends have babies around the same age as Zain. So party favors had to be baby friendly.
Here's what was inside the goodies bag which I crafted to look like a bear. First was a Teddy bear obviously! ordered from Oriental Trading. Second item; a bunch of crayons with a bow tied around them. The third being my favorite; a teddy bear cookie bag with a chocolate cookie inside it. The cookie bag was bought from Etsy.
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| Items 1 and 2 together |
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| Item 3 |
I wanted to get Zain a cute outfit for the birthday party but not theme related because I felt everything else was too theme-y. So I looked online and came across this cute baby boutique on Etsy.com and got a customized T-shirt with Zain and 1 embroidered on it. It came out perfectly!
Then came the food, which was outsourced. We were not having the party at our home and had invited quite a lot of friends, so catering was the best way to go about it. For the decor of the venue, we hired a professional decorator (Red Balloon Events) as that was the plan from the beginning. Although, our actual plan involved having the birthday in Pakistan but that was not meant to be. We wanted to have a nice big celebration for our one-year-to-be, no matter where we had the party.
My decorator did a superb job of converting the image I had in my mind of the stage. I got my inspirations from a few different parties I saw on Pinterest and then incorporated them with our theme and colors. I made a sketch for the decorator and she delivered on it wonderfully.
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| Sketch I drew (Clearly I suck at drawing) |
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| The stage set up made by the decorator using the sketch above |
A lot of my inspiration these days comes from Pinterest. Not being very crafty by nature, I still like to try my luck in every possible way. I decided to make a few things for the party to add a personal touch. My favorite out of the lot, was the typical twelve monthly photographs that are now are norm on the first birthdays. I just personalized it with the theme, put it in a string and had it hanging over the buffet table. However, later at home we did a cupcake smash and it created the perfect backdrop for it, along with the I-am-ONE highchair tags made by yours truly.
We also set up a wishing tree booth. Friends left messages for the birthday boy. The tags were cut in the same pattern as the monthly photographs and highchair tags.
These days the entire birthday and its setup is centered around the birthday cake. Our incredible 3D cake was ordered from a lovely bakery close to us. Its called Cakes for Occasions and the cake they made was out of this world. It looked amazing and tasted heavenly. I only showed them a picture I had saved from Instagram and they did a fantastic job recreating it. This is what I am talking about:
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| 3D Teddy Bear cake |
I wanted to have a photo booth but didn't care for those typical props. So I bought a piece of cloth from Joann Fabrics to be used as a background and asked the decorator to make a '1' out of balloons, with which we took photographs of all the guests. This is how it was set up:
Hope you enjoyed my post. I tried to give information about the things and vendors I used in case you are planning a birthday party for your little one. If you liked it or have any questions please leave a comment and subscribe at the bottom of the page. Stay tuned for more!
