The Planning and Decorations
The inspiration for our little lady's 1st birthday celebration was easy to find! Annelisa showed quite the affinity for Eric Carle's
The Very Hungry Caterpillar starting back in January. She often would sift through her toys and board books to find and look at this one, to quickly "read" the book with her little ankles crossed. Each day, I would make a point of reading the story of the hungry little caterpillar eating his way through all the foods and becoming the beautiful butterfly! She would grin, giggle, and touch at the pages. I was smitten! I thought it would be a fairly easy to follow theme...especially for this former reading teacher! When in doubt I could and would refer back to the book! Thankfully, I also found plenty of inspiration on Pinterest! I was not the first to attempt this celebration theme, and my craft impaired nature was glad to find other much more crafty mommies out there to be inspired by!
The first step to any celebration is the invitations. I found an Etsy vendor who creates invitations digitally; I was thrilled with how Annelisa's turned out!
After receiving the digital file, I uploaded it to Shutterfly and ordered the invitations as 5 x 7 photos. I then backed each invitation with various colors of card stock. I found large yellow envelopes at Office Max and created a personalized return address label complete with the hungry caterpillar for Annelisa. I finished off each envelope by punching holes in the envelope flaps to emphasize the caterpillar eating his way through. just like he does in the story. I think they turned out pretty cute!
The next steps included two very crafty, creative ladies! My sister-in-law, Nancy, and good friend, Aly! I honestly could not have pulled off the decor I so greatly desired if it hadn't been for these two! These two made or helped make the following items:
- "Happy 1st Birthday, Annelisa!" Banner
- Keepsake book instructions
- Food labels to mimic the story
- Giant Pom Pom Caterpillar
- Birthday outfit with tutu and hair bow (Courtesy of Auntie C at my old school!)
Nancy took the Pinspiration I found and liked and ran with it! She created Annelisa's "Happy Birthday" banner, labels for all the food at the party, the cupcake toppers, and the instructions for Annelisa's keepsake book. All in keeping with our theme and "girly" colors! I can't begin to express my thankfulness for her time, attention to the details, and supplies she used to create all of these items! They were beautiful! Aly made Annelisa's tutu and onesie and taught me how to make while assisting me with the Giant Pom Pom Caterpillar. She also watched our little lady for me while my sister and I got our house all clean for the big day!
The final piece of our home made decorations was Annelisa's monthly pictures with her bear. I've been taking pictures of her on her monthly birthday throughout her first year and wanted to use them at her party to show off how much she's grown! I took each photo and backed it with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple card stock. The pieces of card stock were tied together with a simple multi-color polka dot ribbon I found at Joann's. It's arrangement on the fireplace was perfect!
Annelisa's Smash Cake was the center piece to the array of sweets at her celebration. Our friend, Rachel, made it and it turned out better than I could have dreamed! I especially loved all the food items and dots around it. I found the cute little caterpillar cake topper on Etsy.
Sources of Inspiration and Vendors:
Smash Cake: Rachel Franklin
Part 2: The Big Day is up next! So stayed tuned for lots of pictures of our celebration!
