Olivia's Party

The party started at 2 and people were prompt! :)  Everyone chatted at first, and I encouraged the kiddos to head to the craft tables.  Soon after people were eating.

We had a total of 16 adults (3 of the husbands couldn't make it) and 11 kids (3 ended up not coming).  That included us.  It was a nice sized party.  Not too big and not too small.

This is one of the best pictures I got of us.  Unfortunately, Olivia's naptime had to be cut short for the party.  Our church has Saturday night service, so our party couldn't really be after her nap and I didn't want to do it too early in the day.  Partly, because that would cut into my decorating time and partly because I didn't want to serve lunch.  She was tired, but did a great job!

I got ready at the last minute. I was so hot.  My hair was droopy, and I had no time to touch up my make up.  Thankfully I didn't look as much like the train wreck that I felt.

Our party was 5 couples from our life groups (or the halves that didn't have to work), my boss and Little man, Michael's mom, and two of Michael's friends from high school that now live here too.

After crafts, eating and mingling, we opened gifts.  We saved the gifts from us and her grandmas for at the house.  I didn't know how she was going to do.  One year olds don't really "open" gifts.  I didn't want a long drawn out process.  People get bored.  Since there was only 8 families represented, there were only 8 gifts to open.  Not bad.

Reading the card from Little Man...  My boss got her 2 swim suits and 8 outfits/dresses.  She has a whole new wardrobe!

Olivia had pulled her bow out, messed up her hair, and looked super sleepy in all of the pictures.  Besides clothes from my boss, she got pajamas, hair bows, books, a toy phone, another dress, two toy picnic baskets, and a doll.

Next up was the pinata.

Each kid pulls a string until the string attached to the trap door releases the candy.

I was taking pictures and Michael was holding the pinata, so my boss took Olivia over to pull a string.

It was taking longer than expected, so it ended up turning into a free for all.

It was literally the LAST string pulled.

Obviously Olivia doesn't eat candy, so I didn't even have a bag for her.  She did get in on the action though.

(Unfortunately, I'm new to the whole DSLR world and the focus is not on the right object.)

It takes a long time to pick up five pounds of candy off the floor!

Next up was cake.

 Everyone singing

Blowing out the candle

She went right for the bow.. which was gumpaste, so I took the bow and beak off.

She was pretty slow going with it.  Not like the when we did her pictures.

 I eventually shoved her hands in it a little.

Looking at daddy

I served cake to everyone, people chatted for a bit, and that pretty much summed it up. :)

Olivia's Party--The Details, Part 2

You probably couldn't see from the other pictures, but there was a little nook around the corner.  This is where I set up for the cake smash.  The shelf, trunk, and chest were already there.  I emptied what was on the shelf and set up my "ONE" and filled it with pictures of Olivia.  I left the candles and tray because they matched.  Her cake smash cake is on the chest, along with a cute picture of her in her owl hat from when she was 6 months old.  I colored and cut out the sign using my silhouette (are you catching a theme here?) and taped tulle to it.  Oh, and her high chair is already owls and the owl bib is one we use on a regular basis.  The corner is dark, so we just went ahead and used the lamp that was already there.

Those letters sell for $54 on etsy.  $54!!!!!  Let's just say I made mine for much less.  Time consuming-yes.  But oh so cute.  Plus, I pulled double duty and used them for her one year pics as well.

When I got my silhouette, I was looking at the official blog and found this idea...

I knew instantly that I wanted to do it!

I knew there were dark couches and chairs, and not only would this be an amazing personal touch, but it would add a nice pop of color.  Well, this turned into 4 pillows.  All were made for less than $20 and I still have supplies left over.  My mother in law graciously sewed them for me!

There was another monogram one and one that said Happy Birthday Olivia.

My mother in law also made Olivia an owl pillow as a gift.  It matched her colors, so I took it to the party!

We used the coffee table as a gift table

My "watch me grow" wall

Most people are doing banner similar to the "happy birthday" one I made.  That would have been fine if we were having the party in my house.  However, this room was big.  I knew I needed big decorations and color.  My mother in law sewed the circle garlands for me.  There were more, and I would have loved to use them, but they got so tangled and I was so short on time that they just had to be scrapped.

The little owls are the same ones I used on the bar.  They were slapped up last minute.

I love how the pictures turned out.

I'm going to make a scrapbook out of the pages.  I'm probably going to add some more embellishments (I didn't want them to get too heavy) or her stats for that month... or possibly both.  They are too nice to just disassemble.

Other things that didn't get done: tulle on the black chairs to add more color, more balloons, and lanterns/pom poms hanging.  The space was nice, but maybe just a little too big.  Plus, it was hard because we had to literally pack up two cars full of stuff, then unload it, etc.  I hope we have a house by next year.

A post on the actual party is coming...

Olivia's Party--The Details, Part 1

Well, we had Olivia's party on Saturday.  It didn't go quite as I had planned, but even so... I'm pretty sure it was the nicest one year old birthday party I've ever been to! :)  Even though I was personally a little disappointed, no one knew and everyone raved at how nice of a job I did.

Here's a little tour of the party--with lots of details, of course.

We had it at our church.  We rented out a space that is the youth cafe.

The door was off to the side and looked a little like an emergency exit, so I wanted to have a cute way to show what door to go in.  I found these wooden owl cutouts at Michael's for $3 and knew they would be perfect.

The details: I spray painted them pink, cut out eyes and a beak using my silhouette, added a little bling to the eye like I did on the invitations, and added ribbon and tulle bows using hot glue.  The words were vinyl, again, cut using my silhouette.  I then hot glued 59 cent dowels to the back.  Come on, those are stinkin' cute, right?!

I decided to go with a candy/dessert table.  I like how they look and thought it would be fun.

Note to self (and others), only do this when your party is an easy to find candy/dessert color like red.

I had a hard time finding blue and pink candy.  I could have ordered some online for a small fortune.  Instead, I went with what I could find.

I took rice krispy treats and dipped half in white chocolate and covered it with blue sprinkles.  There are cookies and cream kisses, strawberry milkshake whoppers (that looked MUCH more pink on the box), Hershey bliss bars and watermelon licorice.

This side had blue raspberry gummies, strawberry wafers, more licorice, chocolate covered pretzels with more blue sprinkles, and some dove raspberry chocolates.

My cake lady made the cake pops.  The cake was vanilla and the pops were red velvet.
I got cheap white tins, put that foam stuff in it, and covered it in decorative tissue paper.

One of the reasons that I was disappointed about the party is that we ran out of time when it came to setting up and decorating.  I had to cut a lot of the things I had planned.  I'm not sure there is anything I could have done differently.  We couldn't get in until 11.  We got there at 11:30, but I don't think a half hour would have helped.  I had food labels printed, but didn't have time to attach them.

The other thing that I was disappointed about was the cake.  Ugh, the cake.

I know what you're probably thinking... "Oh, it's so cute".  That's what everyone said.  The thing is, it's NOT what I asked for.  I specifically asked for an owl with a head and body.  I sent an exact picture. Twice.  My exact words (both written and verbal) were that I did not want an abstract cake where an oval equals an owl.  What do you see?  An oval equals an owl.  Yeah, not happy. I did let the cake lady know.  She apologized and offered to make me a cake for free for my next gathering.  I don't want another cake.  I wanted the cake I asked for for my daughter's FIRST BIRTHDAY.  That's life for you...

Unfortunately since the wall was windows, some of the pictures turned out a little dark.

I made this banner using my silhouette.

It was really hard finding the right color of scrapbook paper.  I had to go with "close enough".

One way that I tried to make the party unified, was to use the same paper and font (when possible) throughout.  A lot of the paper I used came from a glitter pack, so that added some nice sparkle and texture.

A view of part of the room.  Another reason I was disappointed... I had planned to photograph the party and all the details my way BEFORE it started.  Unfortunately, because we ran out of time, Michael was scrambling for pictures before things got crazy.

The food table... four tables to sit/eat/chat, the drink bar, and the table with gift bags and owl pinata.

A lounge area with couches and chairs

The food table.  I had intentions of having a TON of balloons to help with the decor and coloring.  The room is a hip cafe for teenagers, but brown walls and black ceilings don't quite scream one year old party.  We were lucky to have the 12 balloons we had.  Oh, and did you know there is a helium shortage?!  I snagged up a tank from the craft store with my 40% coupon so I didn't have to worry about it...or tangled balloons in the back of my car.

Check it out... I blinged out the forks!

Also on the food table were a few owls.  I got these on sale at Hobby Lobby for 50% off.  I spray painted them white, added some ribbon, and used some of the left over flowers from the packs I bought for the invitations.

I went simple with the food.  I bought meat/cheese/cracker trays at Kroger and then did a fruit tray and a veggie tray.  I also had pink and blue cupcake liners filled with goldfish and puffs for the littles.

The drink counter

We hung the pink curtains to hide the kitchen.

Isn't that owl vase so cute?  I love it.  I plan on using it on a regular basis.

We had strawberry lemonade, blue Hawaiian punch, juice boxes for the littles, and water bottles.  I had every intent on making labels for the water bottles, but my time in the evenings was limited and I just couldn't get to it.

I also planned on hanging all sorts of tulle down from the counter.  I'm lucky those owls got taped on there.  That was one of the last things I got to.

Have you seen all of those cute mason or milk jars online used for drinks.  Yep, I went trendy here.

I just used Starbucks bottles (bought when Target was having a really good sale).  I etched them with an O--I designed it on my silhouette, cut it on vinyl, attached it and used etching cream.

Of course I had to buy cute paper straws.

Here were the gift bags.  They had a picture on them of Olivia wearing her owl hat.  The poster in front of her says "Thank you for coming to my party. It was a HOOT!"

I meant to take a picture of the contents of the bags.  They had owl bubbles, owl yo-yo's, owl stickers, and an owl pencil.  Then the kiddos used the bags to fill them with their candy from the pinata.

We used a string pinata, so no sticks were involved. :)

I reused vases from our wedding (some of the dessert bar was from that too) and filled them with pink and blue feathers.  Get it... owls... feathers.  Yeah, I think that was a little abstract for some people to get, but I thought it was cute. :)

This was the door.  It has a red sign on it that says "Do not open: Alarm will sound" or something like that.  Well, that's not really true.  We wanted people to use that door, so I just covered it with this owl art project that we did with Olivia.

This is the party already in action, but there were no other pictures of the craft tables.

There was a sign that said, "Owl of you should do a craft or twooo"

 There were owl masks, owl bags that you could color on, and owl window catchers with paint.

Ok folks, this blog has now taken me two hours to write and is getting ridiculously long.  Party details part 2 coming.... :)