Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Luke’s 1st Birthday {Food and Jungle/Summer Decor}

I figured I would break this up into two posts so it didn’t become visual overload! For Luke’s first birthday I did a jungle theme which kinda morphed into a summer/jungle theme because I had such a hard time finding jungle items that I liked. Here’s a glimpse into some of the food and decorations I did for the party:

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I took a basic $1 yard-sale photo board and hot-glued ribbon in the party luke's first b-day 086colors on top of the existing white ribbon. I popped the “buttons” off to glue the ribbon and then hot-glued them right back. Desserts were cupcakes, animal crackers in a cookie jar, m&ms, nuts, watermelon, s’mores and monkey bread (which turned out amazing thanks to Sarah’s recipe – thanks!).

I couldn’t find a cupcake stand I liked, so I just wrapped two boxes in luke's first b-day 083birthday paper and made my own! The cupcakes were topped with brown sprinkles and some of them had animals on top. I took jungle animal stickers from Michaels, stuck them to cardstock, then hot-glued it to a toothpick and stuck them in.





I made a separate “smash cake” for Luke – my first foray into cake-decorating! I am no professional but it was fun and easy to make this monkey cake, thanks to Parenting.com.

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Some food pictures – we had sweet and sour meatballs, pasta salad, buffalo chicken wing dip, chips and salsa, seven-layer Mexican dip, hotdogs for the kids, Italian pinwheels, and veggies and dip.

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Gotta love a party in the garage! :)

On the tables, I placed an orange placemat topped with a mason jar and pinwheels. I wanted to put sand in the jars, but that was too expensive so I just poured in sugar! I made the pinwheels using a tutorial from Amanda’s site and I really like how them came out. I also put my baby food jars around the base of the mason jars.

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(One of the candles had blown out but you get the idea!)

Of course I had to personalize my chalkboard in honor of the birthday boy:

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I also made this easy banner (I got the original idea here – super cute!). I just cut out a dollar-store banner, used the letters as templates, and mod-podged fun scrapbook paper over the top. I used tiny clothespins to affix it to the twine. I am keeping this from year to year and plan on hanging it up each birthday that he has (I figure I can get maybe 8 years out of it before he thinks it’s way too lame. :)

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Last but not least, here are the kids’ goodie bags. I used wooden animals from Michael’s, hot-glued them to treat bags, and personalized them with each kid’s name.

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There you have it! I’ll probably do one more quick post actually showing the birthday boy :), but I figured some of you are like me and would enjoy seeing how someone else did a party. :)

Oh, and I forgot to add that my budget for the entire party was originally $100, but it ended up being $150 - still not too bad for food and drinks and decor for 35 people!

To see how I did the invites and tea lights, click here.


Linked to:

Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage
Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table and Dreaming
Tot Tuesday @ My Delicious Ambiguity

15 comments:

  1. AWESOME!!! You and Jill could totally start a business together doing event planning. Holy tomoly this is great! And I like your cupcake stand way more than anything I ever saw! Espec good for those people who don't have much storage space for a gadget they'd only use 2x a year!
    Fab fab fab!

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  2. Awww everything looks great!!!

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  3. Oh wow, everything looks so amazing!!!!

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  4. Everything looks really cute! Happy 1st birthday Luke!

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  5. Soooo cute!! I am a sucker for anything jungle themed. My Noah had a jungle nursery :) I buy those wooden jungle animals from Michaels all the time and use them for gift "tags"!

    You did a really great job with the theme and I am uber-impressed with the monkey cake. Thanks for sharing!

    Happy Birthday to Luke :)

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  6. Everything was very nice Jess. Very creative decorations.

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  7. Happy Birthday Luke!

    So glad everything went well. It looks FANTASTIC! When I clicked on the first picture, Yum! Monkey bread! :)

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  8. I just bought invites, cupcake papers, and finger puppets with a jungle/zoo theme! Baby Girl's 2nd birthday isn't until January, but the deals were good! I'm definitely marking this post so that I can refer to it as we get closer to birthday time!
    Thanks for the ideas!

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  9. What a great job you did on the birthday decorations. The cake is adorable. I'm quite impressed.

    My first time by, and I think your blog is precious. Where were you when my kids were little!?

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  10. The monkey cake turned out so cute! Great job Jessica.

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  11. it all looks so cute!! hope he had a great 1st b-day!!

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  12. What a great birthday celebration! I've only just heard of the smash cakes, what a great idea - your cake was too cute to eat let along destroy!! LOL...Hard to believe how fast they grow up - I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog! I'm now following your blog and hope to see what else you're up to!

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  13. You’ve got a great blog here. Would love it if you’d link up this party and some of your creative ideas for toddlers on my Tot Tuesdays Linky Party:
    http://www.mydeliciousambiguity.com/

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  14. What a cute birthday party. I especially love the pinwheels...such a nice touch.

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