Macklin's 1st Birthday

I was very excited to plan Macklin's 1st Birthday!

It was a ton of fun to plan....the only downside....I couldn't invite EVERYONE I knew :(

I had to be reasonable with my first kid birthday as I didn't quite know what to expect.

It was so nice to have my parents in town to help with the final preparations.

Here are some of the details. If anyone would like to know more, please let me know!

Here is the original idea.

Here is the first blog posting from our photographer again.

While I am posting links, this is my favorite party blog.

Also, I have some leftovers from this party, so if any of my readers want them (or you know someone that does), just send me a quick comment and I can let you know what I have that would make another great party without all the work :)

The Invitation

I put together the invite in Photoshop, but learned that I should have done it in Illustrator (thank you Abbie!). I became quite the Adobe pro through this party and I learned easier ways to do things after I had done it the slow way first! I just printed them from my computer onto cardstock. I made the filmstrip by snagging a templet off of the internet and then pulling it all together in Photoshop. I then put two strips on one 4x6 print and had them printed off at Walmart (ended up at like 6 cents per strip)

Dessert Table

I just tried to find anything Orange and Teal! We had cupcakes, Jello Jigglers, Goldfish, cheese cubes, rice krispies, cookies and creme Hersey Kisses, blue Gatorade, orange juice, and Jelly Belly jelly beans. It was probably a bit too much, but super fun to plan out. The biggest hit....the Jello Jigglers!

Time Capsule

I had everyone just bring a little note for Macklin instead of a gift. I am going to put all of these in a little time capsule for him to open on his 18th birthday. I was so excited to sneak a peak at the messages and hope we still have all of these sweet friends in 17 years.

Favors

With the photo/memory theme, I snagged these little glasses from Hobby Lobby and wrapped them up in little bags with a note that said, "Thanks for a picture perfect first birthday!"

Photo Props

We had mouths and mustaches that we just printed and cut out from card stock. They acted as photo props for the photo booth. They were a lot of fun to play with and served as center pieces on the little kid tables in the bucket of crayons!

Using the photo props to the extreme! The black bubbles are just cut wood (thank you Ryan) painted with chalk board paint (thank you Mel).

My sweet bible study friends (thanks for celebrating with us)!

Month Pictures

I printed off a 5x7 picture from each month of Macklin's life and strung them up for guests to see. Come on, I can't do this for his 18th birthday so I might as well take advantage when I can!

Highchair Decor

We just used our everyday highchair (which is Justin's from when he was a child). I made a little sign out of scrapbook paper and foam alpha stickers. I think I would make it a little smaller in the future.

Other Decor

We used homemade pennants to decorate behind the dessert table (background of pic below) and strings of hand-sewn circle garland for the kid tables and other gift/favor tables. Sewing together paper is a great cheap decoration idea. I got the circle garland idea from here.

Super Helpers...Thank you Mimi and Papa!

Getting all of the kiddos in one pic was a bit harder than I thought!

(We had the party at our church, hence the racks of toys in the nursery.)

One last huge THANK YOU to Melissa for taking all of our sweet pictures! You are awesome!

We even got to use the sign boards for a little thank you card!

This one was not the final winner but is still very cute!