January 29, 2020

Where the Wild Things Are 1st Birthday

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I cannot believe that baby H is a ONE year old! Perhaps, I should stop referring to him as baby H, but I just can’t!

I am way behind on posting, and even worse, I didn’t take any pictures of our DIY birthday party! Long story short, The Smiths on Spruce were sprucing up their kitchen (that’s another post) literally 10 hours before having DOZENS of people over for H’s birthday. It was not our best idea, and we were SCRAMBLING, but fortunately, thanks to our tribe, we pulled it off and it was a WILD, wonderful day. The pictures I do have are from guests (thanks everyone)! One day, I’ll take pictures BEFORE the party starts but until then…

A wild thing and Max greeted guests at the door (the picture on the right was taken inside, next to another DIY party decoration). My mom and I had a great time making these pumpkins, and they required minimal materials. You can find the list below; most of the supplies were purchased from Walmart!

Wild Thing Materials

Red, yellow, and white acrylic paint
Black sharpie
Paper plate
Appetizer skewers

Max Materials

Tan and white acrylic paint
Black and brown sharpies
Yellow foam sheet
Hot glue gun
Chalk marker

Here is another picture of some of the DIY hanging decor I made (it’s a little beat up now). These were made with dollar store hanging pom-poms, construction paper, scissors, glue, colored pencils, and markers. I just free handed them! Easy peasy!

Inside the house, the book was displayed along with a sign that said “WILD THING” and some greenery (both from Hobby Lobby).

Also by the door were the favors with a chalkboard sign. For favors we did bubbles for the kiddos in a moss filled bowl as “tricks to tame the wild things” and a trail mix made of cinnamon and chocolate teddy grahams, Reese pieces, and mini marshmallows for “treats to tame the wild things.”

Downstairs we had our main food table, which did not get pictured because it was already torn into by the time a picture was taken, some other favors & snacks.

For our menu we had a chili bar, chicken noodle soup, hot dogs, mac & cheese, and roast beef sandwiches. We also had a mini hot cocoa bar.

Also, downstairs was our DIY photo booth, which I unfortunately don’t have a picture of. Here is a picture of our DIY props though!

I found masks from http://myrumpus.blogspot.com/2009/10/masks.html.

I simply printed them out on card stock, cut them out, laminated them, and taped them to wooden dowels. The blurb was made on Canva. Because our photo booth was DIY, party guests had to take the pictures themselves or ask a friend. We used my Fujifilm Instax Mini 9, from Amazon, which I got for Christmas a year or so ago. It was a fun add on to the party!

On the way to the tent was H’s month pictures-another DIY project. I took apart an old pallet we had and drilled screws into it. I tied twine across the screws to hold the pictures. Crowns were made from a yellow foam sheet!

Outside by our pool is where we had the “main party.” We ordered the tent from Amazon and not only was it a godsend, but it was a steal! We were able to put our appetizer and dessert table under the tent as well as three rectangle tables and a circle table for guest seating. We also had H’s highchair and a balloon arch under there. Unfortunately, the day was a lot colder than anticipated, but we put a heater under the tent and had our fire pit going, so it wasn’t too bad! We definitely wish the weather cooperated a bit more, but we knew we were taking our chances!

Inside the tent was decorated with a twine wrapped V (H’s nickname) and number one; both of these were DIY and used for H’s first birthday photo shoot. We also decorated with florals from Hobby Lobby, moss from Dollar Tree, and about a million pictures of H roped around using twine and clothespins. Again-pictures were taken after the fact (sigh).

We also had our appetizers and desserts under the tent-a moss cheeseball, spinach dip in a bread sailboat, antipasta skewers, soft pretzel tray, charcuterie board, wild thing cupcakes, and cake!