Monday, January 20, 2014

I threw myself a party. I mean I threw Juniper a party.

Wow!  May 10th.  Yeah.  That was my last post here.  How does that happen? 

Well you haven't missed much.  I have done a few things around the house that I should probably post at some point.  Nothing major but a couple fun things.

One thing I did do was throw Juniper a 1st birthday party.  We usually don't do big parties over here but I figure everyone has to have a great 1 year party.  Also, we all really know that the 1st birthday party is for the mom since the baby will never remember any of it.

I was leaning towards a "you are my sunshine" theme but my friend Carrie suggested I do a rainbow party.  I thought why not do both.  Finley loves rainbows so I figured it would be a great way to get her excited about her sisters party without feeling jealous that she wasn't getting a party this year.  Their birthdays are 2 weeks apart so it may get touchy in the future.

As with anything nowadays I scoured Pinterest for ideas.  I came across this invitation and loved the modern simplicity of it so I decided to recreate it.  Yes, I totally copied it but I am cheap and it's not like I am selling them or not owning up to copying it.  Here's how mine came out.  I added little strips of color to the back to incorporate the rainbow part.





Next on my list was decorations.  You can't go wrong with rainbows with hints of yellow.  I gussied up our mantle with paper lanterns, a rainbow bunting, and Juniper's monthly pictures.  Since I hadn't taken her 12 month picture yet Matt had to quickly sketch out a fill in.


I also made a little display of pictures from the last year.  I used yellow bakers twine and itty bitty little tiny rainbow clothes pins to hang the pictures.  I actually left this up and replaced the pictures with Christmas cards as we got them.


Finley made a bunch of rainbow and sunshine art to display.


Can't forget the party hats and gift bags.





Outside I hung rainbow paper lanterns, made a rainbow picture backdrop, and had a few fun activities for the kids and adults.



The art table before and after.  I had glitter glue, rainbow crayons, punches, lots of scrapbook paper, scissors, markers, plain ol' glitter, and these fun things.  There was also a little table with a rainbow assortment of beads for making necklaces and bracelets.







Bubbles are fun for everyone.  Juniper thought they tasted good.




I got this next idea from a fellow November 2012 mom.  I set up a table with blank wooden blocks and had everyone use a sharpie to write a sweet sentiment for Juniper.  I'm a sucker for stuff like this.




We also can't have a party here without an official photo cut out thingy.





Food wise I decided to save my sanity and buy a cake from Costco and get Mexican food from a local restaurant.  Everyone like tacos, beans, and rice right?  I did put together a few snacks though and an awesome candy table.  I love candy.







Yummy ice cream with rainbow and yellow sprinkles.



I did make Juniper a smash cake but she wasn't super interested in it.  Which made me sad because the inside was rainbow and I would have loved to see her tear into it and get rainbow colors everywhere.






No party is complete without a playlist of songs about sunshine and rainbows.  Matt and I combed the internet and our brains to come up with the following list of songs.  I am sure the neighbors are tired of hearing all of these songs because we play them every time we are out in the yard.

Here comes the sun - The Beatles
Sunshine of your love - Cream
Swblar - Cream
Sunshine superman - Donovan
Jennifer Juniper - Donovan
You are my sunshine - Gene Autrey
Gimme a rainbow that's for real - The Radiators
I live for the sun - The Sunrays
The rainbow connection - Willie Nelson
Sunshine, lollipops, & rainbows - Lesley Gore
She's a rainbow - The Rolling Stones
Rainbow stew - Meryle Haggard
California sun - The Riverias
Walking on sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
Somewhere over the rainbow - Judy Garland
Sugar magnolia - The Grateful Dead
Good day sunshine - The beatles

In the end a ton of fun was had by all.






I did finally get that 12 month photo of Juniper.  I little late but I got it done.


Finally a huge thank you to my official birthday photographer Carrie.  Without her I would not have all of these great photos. 




4 comments:

  1. It was super cute! Glad we could make it!

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  2. Absolutely phenomenal!!! Please throw me a party!

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  3. Beautiful party for a beautiful girl! Well done.

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