elsie's pink & gold first birthday

all photos, except the awful ones of the invitations, are by Adrienne Maples Photography

Really I'm not sure what took me so long to sit down and put this post together.  I think it is my inability to function after 8pm.  I just turn into this zombie.  I can be so incredibly productive from 6am-9am.  Too bad my kids are up at 5:45am...

Even funnier that I started this post a month ago, and am just now finishing it...

Pink & gold are probably really overdone, but I still like it and I don't really care, so pink & gold it was.  With a little coral because coral is my favorite, and hearts because they're cute and it's close to Valentine's day and pink + heart around Valentine's day makes party accessories and such easier to find.  So really I was just doing myself a favor.

Can't say that I'm super pleased with the invitations (or the awful pictures I took of them, but you get the point).  They're cute, but I waited too long to start on the actual design and just couldn't come up with anything I really loved.  I did however LOVE love LOVE the gold glitter liners I put inside the envelopes.  Completely over the top and unnecessary, but totally worth it.  They made me happy.  I'm sure the males on the guest list were just thrilled with the hot pink glitter lined envelope in their mailbox ;o).  I purchased the envelopes at Paper Source, and the liners from here (the seller was great, I highly recommend her!).  Although while in Paper Source I oogled a ton of different papers that would also make good liners, so if you're feeling extra crafty you could go that route.

As far as decorations went, I didn't do anything too crazy.  I reused the wreath I made for Ryann's first birthday party, and just added a gold glittered E to the center (purchased at Joann's and sprayed with Krylon's glitter blast).  I also made some tissue tassel garlands.  These were fairly easy to make, however I don't feel like they compare to the ones I oogle on instagram.  I used this tutorial, and purchased my tissue paper here (same place I purchased tissue from for Ryann's second birthday).  Unfortunately they didn't have any coral so I found some on etsy here.  Table cloths were rented from a local place, balloons were from Party City and the poms were prefolded from Hobby Lobby.  My mom made the gold glitter heart garland (which ended up being a bigger pain in the butt than we expected) and I made the 'happy birthday' banner.  Just used my silhouette to cut stencils for the letters, and then traced them on to gold glitter cardstock and cut them out.

Our sweets table featured the smash cake made by my friend Jenny.  I glittered a basic 1 candle I found at Hobby Lobby, and made the cake topper by wrapping to wooden skewers in gold ribbon, and a little heart bunting out of glitter cardstock of course.  We also had macarons from Natasha's (so freaking good), sugar cookies, brownie bites, glittered fudge, pink lemonade bars and cupcakes.  All the desserts were good, but the macarons were by far my favorite, and I wasn't as thrilled with our spread as some of the other parties we've done.  Oh the horror ;o).

For our other food we had meatballs, cheese, crackers and summer sausage, hummus veggies and pita chips, fresh berries and Neiman Marcus dip.  That last one went over dang well.  I got gold plates and napkins from Target, as well as some other pink napkins from Target and Party City.  Target also convieniently had pink glitter forks and such for Valentine's Day, so we used those.  To hold them on the table I glittered the bottom half of some cheap vases from Hobby Lobby.  I decorated some water bottles by sprinkling glitter and pink confetti on some packing tape, inspired by Sarah's confetti party.  I also put together some pink punch (naturally I can't find the recipe), and served it in mason jar mugs I ordered on amazon.  The straws came from a variety of places and the glitter tape I purchased at JoAnns.  I did my best at a little festiviness on the chalkboard, and created an instagram wall inspired by bub+bug studios twin's first birthday party.  I ordered my prints on cardstock from Persnickety Prints.  I was very happy with their quality and service.  And speaking of bub+bug, the favors for the girls included an adorable little heart clip from her shop, as well as a heart rubber ducky.  The boys got hot wheels cars.  I NEVER know what to put in a favor bag for boys.  If I ever have a boy I think I'm screwed...

Elsie's gold dress came from Crazy8.  Her pink leggings were from Old Navy, and my mom attached the tulle to the ankles.  The pink bow headband was made by bub+bug studio, I can't get enough of her headbands.  E's birthday crown was made by Little Blue Olive, again, absolutely love her stuff.  The high chair we used for the cake smash was a lucky $10 find by Sarah.  She used it for Collins' birthday, and then let me borrow it, and spray it an excessively pink color, for Elsie.

Honestly one of the best parts of Elsie's birthday party was that she seemed to actually enjoy herself, and didn't go in to extreme stranger danger mode.  No, she wasn't super in to all of the guests, but she didn't freak out, enjoyed the food, and overall was just happy.  I was a little terrified to have a birthday party for her because she usually just clings on to me for dear life when we have company over, but it just wasn't the case that day.  We had a great time celebrating our youngest turning one!