Hellobee

Today’s party comes to us from Julie of Duet Letterpress. She threw a sweet pink themed affair for her daughter Emily’s first birthday. Stay tuned for a fun printable from Julie tomorrow!

~~~

We created a theme of “a celebration of firsts” and crafted these invitations + first year certificates (recently featured on Hellobee) for Emily’s first birthday.

We wanted the decor to be easy + inexpensive. So, we continued with the theme and framed some of her special first things in frames we already had around the house.

Her first rattle. Her first bonnet which was hand smocked. Her first hand + foot prints. The bloomers from her one month pictures. We also framed one of her first dresses – a beautiful, soft pink Feltman Brothers dress. Elsewhere, we framed the little hat + info anklet she wore in the hospital, her going home outfit, and her first booties that my grandmother tatted.

We custom ordered a pink vanilla cake from Sugar Mama’s and raspberry and strawberry champagne macarons from La Pâtisserie. We also ordered pink rock candy swizzle sticks.

After purchasing a bunch of different pink + white flowers from a local grocery store, I arranged them into vases we already had.

When it was time for cake, I thought Em would dive right in. Instead, she pulled off the bottom layer of cake + frosting from her slice of cake and ate it. She was really meticulous and neat.

My husband Kacey’s mom created the sweet pink drink. It was some sort of yummy raspberry + ginger ale concoction. The striped straws were ordered from The Cupcake Social. The bottles are just Starbucks frappuccino coffee drinks that we scrubbed the labels off of. I love that we’ll be able to use the bottles again for future parties + gatherings.

We hung a festive mixture of paper lanterns above the island in our kitchen. I purchased them from Fiesta Pom Pom, Paper Lantern Store and Garden Ridge.

We also created a wish table for guests to leave their wishes for Em on her first birthday – a tradition I hope to continue ever year for her birthday.

It was such a great party and I am so proud of how it all turned out. It took a lot of planning + time but by doing a little bit each day, we were able to accomplish everything we wanted without too much stress.