I promise this will be the last of the “Owen just turned 1″ posts, but I wanted to share how much fun his birthday party was. I’m really happy with the way everything turned out!
The name of the game this year was simple and easy. I didn’t want to be stressed out the week before with cleaning, decorating and baking, so I opted for a no frills party. That said, I did want it to be cute, fun and memorable!
Pinterest was my event planner, and she did not disappoint. I found so many cute party ideas and eventually settled on a sock monkey theme. Before we get started, I’ll come right out and admit that most, if not all, of the decorations were inspired by something found on Pinterest, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!
Let’s get this party started, shall we?
About two weeks before the big day, I started working on this wreath.
To make it, I bought a straw wreath and left the plastic wrap on it. I took yarn (red tweed from Hobby Lobby) and wrapped it around the entire wreath, hot gluing the ends to the wreath to make sure nothing came undone. I painted the “1″ with some acrylric paint I had on hand, glued it and the rik rak to the wreath and pinned the sock monkey (which I found months ago at Target). I love it. I love it so much, in fact, that this bad boy is staying on the door until March 1.
A few months ago, I made this fun photo frame and decided to use it as a fun way to display Owen’s month-by-month photos. If I possessed the scissor skills of a kindergartner or had one of those fancy cutting machines, my numbers would have probably turned out better. Oh well.
Underneath the frame, I set up a little table where friends and family members could write notes for Owen’s “time capsule.” The “time capsule” ended up being a vase wrapped in twine, because this mama forgot about it until 10 p.m. the night before. What can I say? It’s how I roll.
Since I know how difficult it can be to come up with something short, yet thoughtful, in a short amount of time, I decided to help people out by giving them some inspiration.
As for interior decorations, I kept those simple, too. I hung a homemade pennant banner over the fireplace, and, since I like displaying photos (and since we took approximately 1,000,554,434 in the past year), I hung a photo banner across the windows in our kitchen.
As for the sweets, my mother-in-law, Donna, made the cutest smash cake for Owen. She used a whipped cream icing so that he wouldn’t be too overloaded with sugar, thank goodness!
While Donna slaved away on the smash cake, I made and decorated the cupcakes. Ya’ll, I had such high hopes for making some magical, homemade cupcakes, but when it comes down to it, I’m terrible at it. You want a cookie? I can handle that. Pound cake? Ask me for my recipe! But it’s a sad sight to see me try to whip up some homemade cupcakes. Since I value my marriage and never want Owen to see me in an explosive fit of baking rage, I decided to solicit the help of Mrs. (Ms?) Betty Crocker when it came to the cupcakes and icing. I can proudly say that I decorated these little monkeys all by myself, though! I found the idea here. They were easy AND fun to make!
But did we survive on cupcakes alone? No! (Although that’s a nice thought …) My mom made about two tons of pasta salad, potato salad and coleslaw (thanks, mom!) and my best friend and knower of all things awesome, Melissa, made about 2 gallons of Georgia Salsa. I also called up my friends at Chick-Fil-A to make us some gourmet chicken nuggets. I believe that I gained about 10 lbs in the last week! By the way, this week shall forever go down in history as the week I lost my mind and ate TWO cans of left over Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge frosting. Good? Yes. Worth it? …… Yes (especially when it’s cold).
When it was all said and done, Owen and my family had a great time! Jake and I really appreciated everyone driving the two + hours to our house to celebrate, and we loved seeing everyone! But, I can officially say that I’m all birthday-ed out. That is, until my 29th birthday rolls around in June. Watch out!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks like an awesome party! I love all the decorations and the smash cake is adorable. And the cupcakes turned out so cute!!! Great job!
Thanks, Sarah! We had a lot of fun!
All of your hard work was worth it! All of the sock money decorations are really adorable and Owen looked like he had a great time. Congratulations on your first year of parenting.
Oh my, what a cute theme!
Your cupcakes were adorable – good job. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to Betty for help – I frequently do that too. 
Thanks, Amy and Andrea! Amy – I have a feeling Betty and I are going to become really good friends in the next few years!
So many cute ideas in this post! I absolutely love the time capsule idea!
Thanks, Christine!