We hosted her 1st birthday party at Hillside Lane this past weekend. It was a total success! We were lucky to have perfect weather. As a tri-level, our house works well for entertaining, but again, it's not huge and we had a pretty big crowd on hand - so the good weather made the backyard the perfect extension of our entertaining space. I always tell Dris that our winter parties will have to be more intimate affairs and we'll save the big bashes for the warm weather when the backyard is in play.
The party was decked out in pink, lime green, purple and orange - the same colors that were in here invitation. And, of course, I scoured Pinterest for inspiration for the party. Check out the details below...
I LOVE paper invitations and when searching for the right one for Luci's big day, I absolutely fell in love with this one from Tiny Prints.
Using the invitation as the color palette for the party, I went about searching for cute ways to bring in the fun colors throughout the party. A few Pinterest gems....
First was the wrapping paper runner for our dining room table. It turned out great, although there are a few things I would do differently next time. First, the plastic tablecover that I got was thin enough that our dark table showed through, making it look more purple than pink. I might go with the paper, more opaque option next time. Secondly, I spent TOO MUCH TIME using painters table to fold and tape the tablecover under the table, only to find much of it had fallen by the next morning. Next time I need to find a better solution or better adhesive (that won't leave sticky goo on my furniture).
I think the part I was most proud of was the pictures that I hung on our front window. Andris and I picked some of our favorites and some that just made us laugh, highlighting different stages from the past year. In the center we put a couple of the most recent one-year pics. Andris had the great idea of using colorful balloon clips to attach the pictures to the string. They were perfect and added more color to the photo display.
I added paper lanterns from Party City in pink, green and purple (I couldn't find any orange to add) to the back of our house to bring the colors outside. This was more of an original inspiration - not to say that there aren't lots of pins out there that showcase this - but this one I actually came up with on my own :)
The final touch were some backyard games for the big kids. We had Bean Bags, Water Balloon Toss (thank you, Andris, for filling over 60 water balloons and hunting down hoola hoops to be used as targets!!!) and Bozo Buckets. I also put out the chalk table that I made a few weeks back...more on this one later :)
Oh and finally..."the goods". Luci had to have a respectable goodie bag to give out to all her friends and cousins. Again, I brought in the colors with the bags and a little ribbon attached to each. The contents included colorful crazy straws and LOTS of TREATS!
It was the perfect day for my birthday girl!
