I know this post about William's birthday details is a little delayed but I figured it's better late than never! Having his party at the zoo was a bit difficult because we had to bring everything in, set up, take everything down and load it back up all in 2.5 hours. I wasn't able to hang things where I really wanted....but by the time the party started I really didn't care. As long as everyone was having fun! I will say I'm looking forward to having W's party at our home next year. :)
These adorable invitations came from Bering's. You really can't go wrong shopping at Bering's! If you live in Houston you must go.
We had two long tables to work with so one of them was used for presents and the other for food. My mom bought the white tablecloths online and I found the yellow chevron table runners on ETSY. William's adorable birthday cake and smash cake were made by Elizabeth with Eggleston's Edibles (you can find her on Facebook). One of the cake layers was strawberry and the other two vanilla. It was delicious. I made the fabric banner hanging behind the presents. I had originally planned to use it as a photo backdrop but there wasn't a good place to hang it from. I got the fabric at Wal-Mart, cut it into long strips and then tied it onto white rope. William had fun helping with this project!
One of my favorite things were the centerpieces on each of the tables...sweet William's hand prints on pots! Half of the pots were yellow and the others white. The white pots had giraffes on them (I don't have a very good picture of the final outcome) and the yellow had zebras. My mom found the pots at hobby lobby and spray painted them all white. I then spray painted 3 of those yellow (over the white). The yellow turned out to be my favorite AND they held the hand print color better.
Once the spray paint dried we did William's hand prints. As you can imagine, this is no easy task with a squirmy little guy. I found the ink pads for his hand prints at Michael's. The giraffes were orange and the zebras were white. To make the handprints into animal I used a Sharpie marker (black for zebra and brown for giraffe). His thumb print made the head/neck and his pinkie the tail. The chevron boxes that some of the pots sat on were just cardboard boxes wrapped in paper I found on Etsy.
At our wedding instead of having a traditional sign in book I made a photo book for people to sign/write notes in. I love this book because it has all of my favorite pictures and our closest friends/family wrote us sweet notes in it. So, I decided to do the same thing for William's birthday party. This is such a great way to get all of your pictures into one place and to help remember the people that celebrated a special day with you!
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| Photo book from Snapfish |
I had a mason jar with primary colored pens next to the photo book and pictures from William's one year photo session.
The chalk board in the back of the above picture said "William is One". I put all the things he loved at that time. :)
I made William's birthday banner with my new Cricut. I'm so glad I bought this...it's super easy to use and fast (two things that every mommy is looking for). I was able to make the entire banner in less than an hour! I can't wait to do another project and to have a little craft area in our next house for my fun gadgets. For this banner I used 3 different layers of paper. Blue, yellow chevron print paper and green. I'm planning on doing primary colors again for his 2nd birthday since our labels didn't make it in time for this party so maybe I'll use the banner again too!
The marshmallows were dipped in green candy melts (yummy) and put in a clear jar with banana runts on the bottom. The water bottles were wrapped in green ribbon and had a zoo animal on them. We also had chocolate cake balls with William's monogram on them. They are Gordon's favorite!
I got all the party favors at Oriental Trading Company. Everything was zoo themed of course. :) Each bag had bubbles, a note pad, an egg filled with m&ms, and a stamp. I got William's initials (that are on the table in the picture above) at Wal-Mart too. They are just wood letters that I painted green.
If you're planning a party I'd highly suggest starting as far in advance as possible (less stressful that way). It's nice to buy things a little at a time. Hobby Lobby and Michael's are both great places to find party and craft supplies! That's where I got my Cricut, all the paper used for the banner, the Wilton candy melts for the marshmallows, the cellophane bags for the party favors and much more. Etsy is also great if you prefer to shop online. I was able to find his monogrammed bib and birthday hat on Etsy as well as the other stuff I mentioned in this post.
Happy birthday planning to all you mommies out there!
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