It's A Wonder: Woodland Themed Birthday Party

My sweet baby boy turned 1 at the end of September. I never thought that I would be one to throw a big, huge, 1st Birthday Party for my son, but after such a crazy year (and all of the adorable ideas on Pinterest) I just couldn't resist throwing a celebration of Weston's first year of life.

Weston's room is woodland themed and I absolutely adore anything that is adorned with cute little forest animals. So I decided on a woodland theme. Since I work part-time, money is sometimes kind of tight, so I didn't want to spend a fortune on food and decorations, so I opted for printable and DIY decorations and used some items I already had around the house. About 6 months ago, I stumbled upon this printable Woodland Party Kit by Lilly Bimble and it was on sale, so I immediately purchased it.(Unfortunatley, I didn't get to use the entire kit. I had planned on making some party hats and table tents the day before the party when I returned from a business trip, but because of a fire at an FAA facility in the Chicago area, I almost didn't make it home for the party, so I just used what I had already printed). I used a number of items I had around the house to create a 'tablescape' and purchased a bunch of tissue paper in the color theme to make the tissue paper balls. Towards the end of September it gets kind of chilly around here so I opted for some cheap and easy cold weather food and put together a chili bar. We borrowed tables and chairs from family and friends and hoped for nice weather since we had planned for the party to be outside.

When I returned home from my work trip at 2:00 a.m. the morning before the party I wasn't sure if Dennis and I would have enough energy to get a party together in the morning. But with a lot of help from our families and some beautiful weather, we put on a surprisingly awesome 1st Birthday Party for our Weston and I couldn't be happier with how the day turned out.!

I was able to edit the invitations with Adobe Acrobat using a similar font and color. My father-in-law is in printing, so he printed them out on nice cardstock and cut them for us. This can easily be done at Office Max/Office Depot or any other local printing shop, or at home. I didn't notice this before, but you can also purchase a custom printable invitation.

Guests were greeted at the driveway with one of the printable Happy Birthday signs and balloons and again at the gate to our backyard with the printable Welcome sign and a tissue paper ball that I made. I put the printable signs in frames that I had laying around the house (from IKEA) and taped some yarn to the back so they could hang over the posts.

I followed this tutorial for the tissue paper balls, leaving enough string to be able to tie it around a fence post.

For the 'tablescape,' I used some decorations from Weston's room, some moss mixes, and two potted ferns. The banner was made by sister (who blogs on Multi-Purpose Mama) using her Silhouette. The deer, owl, and bird figurines are Christmas ornaments that I purchased on sale last year, the week after Christmas. They usually sit on a shelf in Weston's room. I removed the Christmas paraphernalia (Santa hats, scarves, etc) and hooks to make them more year-round woodland creatures. The two trees are also Christmas decorations purchased on sale. It's hard to tell, but the woodland creatures are sitting on a wood slab covered with a moss mix (available at most craft stores or dollar stores). I painted two terra-cotta pots red to match the color scheme and planted Autumn Ferns that I purchased at Home Depot. I later planted these in my garden. The table is covered with Gold Gingham Oilcloth.

Over the years I've put together a party box (post coming soon) with reusable dinnerware, silverware, and serving platters. I use these for almost every party and the only things we have to purchase are napkins and cups.

The party was so fun, we forgot to take pictures of the chili bar! For the chili, I used this recipe from Cooks.com. My Mother-in-law made cornbread using this recipe from AllRecipes.com, but she used 2 cans of creamed corn, and one can of corn kernels. For toppings, we laid out shredded cheese, chopped onions, and jalapenos. For 100 people, we used about 5 lbs of cheese, 10 onions, and one large jar of jalapenos. We also put out a few different types of hot sauces (Tapatio, Cholula, and Frank's Red Hot), so guests could choose their own spice level.