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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Disney Cars Party

My two year old is crazy for Cars so a Cars crazy party is what he got!  I had lots of fun with this... luckily the Cars 2 movie was coming out in theatres in August so there was Cars stuff everywhere in stores.  I got most of my supplies from Dollarama.

First I made the invitations.  I used red folding cards from Dollarama (these are great, they are available in all sorts of colours and come in a pack of 6 for $2!).  I searched all over for a Lighting McQueen stamp but all I could find was a "Ready Set Go" which suited pretty good.  And of course a few weeks later I found the exact stamp I was looking for at Dollarama of all places, but the need for it was long gone.  So I found some pictures on the Internet and printed a bunch of McQueen's and Mater's out on photo paper.  I used some gold metallic rectangles to set it off a bit and then embossed the "Ready Set Go" stamp in glossy black.  For the inside I stamped "Your invited" and printed the party info also on photo paper with another picture of McQueen racing as a watermark.

I didn't go too crazy on the decorating and focused more on things for the kids to do.  I put up red and yellow balloons and just used plain yellow and red plates, silverware, napkins and table cloths.  I got Cars tattoos, Frisbees and beach balls and let the kids go wild.

Oliver showing off some of his funky tattoos!

My dad rented a red "sports" car and offered rides around the block.  Well it wasn't really a sports car but it was red so Oliver couldn't tell.

Oliver pretending to take McQueen for a spin.

I also planned some activities that the kids could do inside in case it was too hot outside and they needed to cool down.  I found these great cardboard canvas pictures with McQueen printed on them.  Instead of goodie bags I got Cars themed paper bags and filled them with Cars stickers, stamps, crayons and markers for each of the kids.  All of which I also found at Dollarama and the kids loved using them all over their Cars pictures.

Oliver colouring his Cars picture.

I also baked some plain sugar cookies in a bunch of car and truck shapes and put out some maple syrup cream cheese icing and a bunch of sprinkles and candies.  The kids had a awesome time decorating their cookies and couldn't get enough!  It was messy but fun and super cute watching the kids put a few sprinkles on their cookie and then a few in their mouth.

Oliver decorating his car shaped sugar cookie.

I made my signature birthday cake with rice flour and maple syrup.  Oliver just loves it and its not packed full of sugar like store bought cake so I feel better about him eating three pieces.  The icing I also made with maple syrup whipped with cream cheese.  Click on the lower right picture for the recipes.  I used green sugar on the top and let it run in order to look like grass and created a road with chocolate cookie crumbs that went across the plate, up the cake and down again.  Yellow gummy bears made the road lines and I used a tiny McQueen from a Kinder Egg and reflective stickers on toothpicks of the other movie characters.

McQueen and Mater Cake Balls

Cars Cake

The cake balls were my favourite part about this party.  I made them chocolate cream flavor with chocolate cake and vanilla icing.  Click the above left picture for the recipe.  I coated half with red chocolate and half with milk chocolate.  I used yellow chocolate on the red ones and wrote "95" on them to signify McQueen and used shaved almonds for Mater's two buck teeth.  I love how the Mater's turned out!  They were almost to cute to eat!

Oliver really taking McQueen for a spin!

All in all the party was a huge success by Oliver.  It was tons of fun and a great memory with the family.  He suitingly got a McQueen car as one of his presents and scooted around the backyard for the rest of the afternoon.  He absolutely loved the entire day!

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