Friday 15 August 2014

Splish Splash 1st Birthday Party

Flashback Friday!  Thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about My daughter's first birthday party (who is now 3) wow how time flies!


I am always trying to come up with different themes for the kids parties.  And first birthday's are always a bit more tricky.  They are too little to say what they want, and you want to throw a party that is age appropriate yet not too babyish.

So I came up with a Bath Theme:

The Lyrics from "Splish Spalsh, I was Taking a Bath" turned out to be my inspiration. 


I took a bunch of props out to our trailer for a mini photo shoot, so that I could incorporate pictures of Opal into the invitation.  For the front picture, I choose my favorite dresses that she wore from Newborn to 12 months.  Strung up a cloths line and hung them with clothes pins.  I think it was a cute way to show how much she had grown in her first year.


For the inside, we used a tin bucket, filled it with water and bubble bath and took pictures of her having a bath.  Printed out the party details and incorporated the lyrics of the song subtly through-out the invite.


My favorite part of the invitation was the back.  We brought some teddy bears and placed them in a row with Opal facing away from the camera.  The saying I placed under the picture says it all!








I decorated for the party in bath like colours.  Meaning; blues and teals, white, silver and white.  I threw in some yellow and hinted the decor with rubber duckies.

The wall that accented as a backdrop for the cake eating pictures, was a full balloon wall.  Basically I stapled (I know, but it only made tiny holes! And at that point I was too frustrated with the 10 different tapes I tried to let it bother me) different coloured and sized balloons to the wall to represent floating bubbles.

I incorporated a floral centerpiece of yellow mums and white hydrangeas with blue and teal glass gems and white feathers filling the clear vase.


I hung yellow paper lanterns and teal tissue puffs in various areas and used white feather boas to add a sudsy look.

I also incorporated more of the song lyrics with a picture display from the photo shoot.  I printed the various pictures with one line of lyrics on each picture and hung them in order on a rope with clothes pins.








For the favors I made sponge balls.  They were pretty easy to make.  You find direction on how to make them here;  But I bought multi-coloured sponges, cut them into strips and tied eight of the pieces together, creating a cute multi-coloured ball of sponge.  I put a bubble tag on the ones we gave out at the end of the party and tied a mini duckie to the tie string.  I had extras out for the kids to play with, since we set up two blow up pools in the backyard with lots of bubble bath and a bubble machine going to create a bath like atmosphere.


Another small detail that I incorporated was a bowl of bubble bath punch.  It is made with blue Hawaiian juice pored over vanilla ice cream to create what looks like a very inviting bubble bath.  Add some floating duckies and I think it made a great feature.  (I took the picture after it had sat for a while so it doesn't look as bubbly as it was).


The table was covered with yellow satin overlays.  We used yellow paper plates and found these super cute duckie napkins.  I mixed them in with some plain teal napkins too, to add more of a variety in colour.


For the cake, (my favorite part!),  I baked three Baby's First Birthday Cake layers.  Iced between the first two layers and then took the third layer and cut a circle out of the centre leaving a ring of cake.  Placed that on top the first two and iced the entire cake.  I then took half chilled blue jello and filled the top layer, to make a bath tub!  cute huh?  I made some cake balls and covered them with blue and white chocolate partially swirled together to look like bubbles.  I also formed two cake balls to look like a rubber duck and covered them in yellow chocolate.


I was extremely happy with how the cake turned out and the whole party was a huge success!  My daughter thoroughly enjoyed herself!



This is a picture of the adorable dress my Mom made her for her party.  I loved those Prints!



I forgot how much she loved rubber duckies at that age!

That's all for now!

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