Unbirthday DIY Style

Well...it happened. Despite my kicking and screaming, my baby girl turned one. This is such a bittersweet time. I'm stuck in the constant limbo of wanting her to learn new things while praying she stays little forever. *sigh*

 This is motherhood I suppose. On a lighter and less dramatic note, her birthday was a hit. All of the planning was worth it.

This was a total DIY birthday. There is an amazing park out here called Riverview. This park has everything except decent shade and seating. There are 3 cabanas near the splash pad, and lets face it, my little water baby needed to be near the splash pad. You can only reserve one of them and being that we had about 40 people, a table for 6 would not do! I only had one option...I had to be the early bird. I knew this was going to be challenging because this park is CRAZY crowded! Like...200 people on a weekday crowded. I knew I was going to have to battle people but I'm just stubborn tenacious enough to make it happen.

Oh-my-God-thirty rolls around and I roll my exhausted booty out of bed. I loaded up the car and in the process of packing up, I managed to wake up my parents who were sleeping in my living room. You know  that if a box of soda cans are going to crash to the floor, it is going to be at 5 AM and it's going to be while the rest of the house is sleeping. Sorry!

After loading up and driving, we finally get there at about 6 AM and luckily no one is there except for some drunkards climbing a 60-something foot tower. As long as they leave my cabanas alone, have at it! I gotta tell you...I felt so accomplished. I realize this is one of the smallest situations that will require me to go to bat for my daughter but hey! it's a good start.

So, here are some shots of our DIY Alice in "One"derland party. Enjoy!

Invitations

I wish I could take DIY credit for these because I am so in love with them but I actually got them here.

Guest Book

I have every intention of pushing books on my daughter until she loves them as much as I do. I wanted to do something besides the traditional guestbook. I thought it would be awesome to get her an "Alice in Wonderland" book and have everyone sign it. I made an adorable sign to explain our little process.

Drink Me

This was really simple, not much to it. I found this little bottle at Michaels. It was around 2 dollars. I filled it with water and food coloring and tied a printed tag on with some twine.

Food Labels

I had so much fun with this. I printed off these food labels and framed them in some cheap frames I had hanging around. I just painted the corners of the frames with the paint I love to hate

 (Martha Stewart paint).

March Hare Fare = Fancy way of saying vegetable tray.

Blue Caterpillar Salad = My sister’s amazing pasta salad with noodles we dyed blue.

1.       Cook noodles.

2.       Rinse noodles in cold water.

3.       Put noodles in zip lock with food coloring.

4.       Rinse in cold water.

Cheshire Cat Cookies = Pink and purple cookies. We call them cloud cookies and they are amazing. They are super easy to make. 1 box of cake mix, 1 container of cool whip and 1 egg. That's it!

Down the Rabbit Holes Spirals = Cut up turkey wrap.

The Cake

Instead of doing cake we decided on a personal cake for Aubrey and then cream puff desserts for the guests. I made her a single serving cake and baked it in a mug. I’m pretty sure I’m buying a cake next year! This cake was a pain in the axe but it ended up beautiful (thanks to my sister) and the birthday girl REALLY enjoyed it.

The Centerpieces

I have an entire post dedicated to these and they came out fabulous.

Also! Huge thanks to Danielle Yvonne Photography. She did an incredible job photographing Aubrey's party and made my DIY projects look a lot better than they actually are!

That about sums up our DIY birthday party! It was a great time. So great that our not-so-little girl fell asleep at 5:30 PM!

And so begins the planning of birthday number 2!

Until Next Time...

Bear Hugs,

Angie