I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow my baby turned 1. Some sort of time warp, I guess.
Much as I tried to keep things simple and low-key, I friggin LOVE to throw parties. So as the day of the party approached, I kept adding little handmade projects here and there. It's a disease.
Here are all of the sweet little details that made up Max's Woodland Creatures 1st birthday party.
Let's talk about this cake. The cake itself was just a box mix (don't tell), but the frosting was from scratch - chocolate sour cream frosting. The stuff in a can just doesn't cut it. Here's the recipe.
I am not great at frosting cakes (we can't all be good at everything, right?) so I followed this tutorial to get that perfect messy-frosted look. It's the cake equivalent of the messy bun I wear in my hear 5 days a week.
The little creatures are from Michael's. I considered spray painting them gold and silver, but the Hubs said that would be overkill and nobody would appreciate it but me. He was probably right. But just imagine in your mind's eye how pretty that would have been.
Aaaaaaah.
That cake topper is just 2 paper straws, bakers twine, washi tape, and a sharpie. Took just a few minutes (and some hot glue).
We had about 20 folks coming for the party and I feared a 9" round cake wouldn't quite be enough, so I made some cupcakes to supplement. I used yellow cake mix (from a box) and the same sour cream chocolate frosting. But GET THIS. The frosting was a month old. The recipe makes a butt-ton of frosting, so when I made it in October I had extra...so I FROZE IT. Yep. Just let it thaw in the fridge for a day, whipped it up with the beater attachment on my mixer, and it was good to go.
I made the cupcakes look all mossy-like by taking graham crackers, pulsing them in the food processor until they were crumbs, and adding food coloring. It took quite a bit - about 25-30 drops of green and 5-10 of yellow. Just frost, dip, and top with a four-legged creature of your choice.
That is my mom's famous cheese ball recipe made to look like a hedgehog. I just shaped it into a teardrop shape, used sliced almonds for the spikes, and used black olives for the eyes and nose.
I don't think cheese balls should come in any variety other than hedgehog.
Cute huh? They are twigs and fish and rocks, obviously. I thought about labeling them as such but then thought that would look kind of douchey (can I say douchey in a post about a 1 year old's birthday? I think so). Aaaaaanyway, that's actual live green moss they are surrounded by. Impulse purchase in the floral department of my grocery store. Only $3.
I did a tiered arrangement of those snack bowls by stacking them on other bowls or folded up paper.
This is a normal veggie tray, but it's guarded by a fox, so it fits the theme.
Here are the cute garlands I made. I shared a tutorial on them over here. The tassel garland is now up and being used as Christmas decor. Actually, like half of the party decorations have been repurposed for the holidays. Bang for the buck.
Buck. Get it?
Like a deer?
Here's the birthday boy looking forlorn because he wants ALL the food. He spent most of the party walking around and begging for food.
We kept the food at the table in the kitchen, but most everyone actually ate in our formal dining room. We are so spoiled at this house to have 2 dining tables.
I learned a great lesson at Henry's 3rd birthday party - one should protect one's nice table with paper because kids are friggin messy. This roll of contractor paper (what you use to protect your floors with when you paint your house) did the job. To up its cute factor I washi taped the sides down and stamped the edges using the same stamps from the invitations.
OH! I haven't showed you the invitations yet. My bad. Here they are.
I designed them myself - an amalgomation of like 4 different styles I saw online and liked (but was too cheap to buy). They are printed on Kraft paper cardstock.
Genius I am, I forgot to put an RSVP on the front, so I used that little fox stamp on the back and hand wrote the RSVP part. Whatever. It worked.
Here I repurposed Henry's laundry basket to hold presents. Zero dollar decorations for the win.
These sweet little stars were an idea from smileandwave on Instagram. Just cardstock and plain acrylic paint. Henry and I made them together. Well, Henry made a mess and I made these. But still.
These are also still up for Christmas. My mother in law thought they might be some sort of reward system for good behavior, like an oversized sticker chart. Nope, but not a bad idea.
Since we had three 3-year olds in attendance, I whipped up a little pin-the-tail-on-the-deer for the bigs. I used that same contractor paper and sketched out a deer and tails. Tails were stuck using washi tape.
45 minutes to make. 4 minutes of entertainment. Worth it? Maybe not. But it was cute.
Max wasn't so sure at first. But he didn't cry. First baby in the history of time not to cry when everyone sings happy birthday at them.
He wasted no time on that cake. He also ate a cupcake. He's a machine.
All the party people. The two bigs are only 2 weeks apart. The two littles 7 weeks apart. I promise their mom and I didn't plan this, but how cool would it have been if we did? Like one of those teenage pregnancy pacts. Except in our 20s/30s.
There ain't no party like a Lenney party cuz a Lenney party's got booze. White Russians for everyone!
There you have it! Hope you enjoyed this little party tour. Time to start thinking about Henry's 4th birthday in April! OK, not even I am that much of a planner. I won't start working on it until at least January.
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