{In Progress} First Birthday Party Projects

Oh, hi.

I feel like it's been awhile, dear blog world. But you see, I've been immersed in the magical birthday project craft-land and I suppose I should come up to the surface for a second to show you what I've done thus far. Otherwise the official 'reveal' birthday party post is just going to be too overwhelming for me to write so I hope you don't mind me breaking it up like this. Hope it doesn't spoil the decorative fun for those friends actually attending the party (I'm sure I'm the only one who cares about stuff like that, so whatever).

Anyway!

My baby girl is turning ONE on May 28, you guys. A slew of mushy posts to come about that, but her first birthday party will be on June 1. I have a theme this time: Our Little Heartbreaker. Which, of course, comes from the Simon and Garfunkel song, 'Oh, Cecelia!'. So hearts, bright colors, and a ton of photos will be my 'theme'---and I rarely do themes but am really excited about this one. Did I mention that I am happiest when I have a craft to do? I swear I'm not trying to be a part of the Pinterest problem, going over the top with tedious projects or anything. I truly just love it and have always loved crafts/DIY/decor....long before the age of Pinterest. Baking isn't my thing, and neither is outfit creating but crafts? Yes, Pinterest. You got me. Thank you for the awesome ideas.

So let's begin with her invitations. I asked my good friend Maggie, who owns The Paper Perfectionist on Etsy, to make Cecelia's paper invitations since Maggie also made Truman's first birthday invites. And it's all about keeping things equal, obvi.

I told Maggie about the 'heartbreaker' theme and showed her a few invites that I loved, mainly this one, and this one. I talked about chevrons, bright colors and a big fat photo of my girl being important. Maggie came up with the final product and I'm obsessed.







Next I wanted to create something like this pin that had intrigued me for a long time. When I was in Missouri visiting my parents, I snagged my mom's heart hole punchers. Then I dug through my random scrapbooking paper I already had in my stash and started punching hearts like a mad woman. I hot glued the paper hearts to some yarn, tied the strings to a tiny dowel rod and voila!





I'm thinking this will be sort of a backdrop for photos---if I can successfully manage a little 'photobooth' posed shot of each family at our party like I'm envisioning. We will see. But basically this is just random decor that turned out how I'd hoped. Might as well keep it hung on the wall until her party (or beyond).

Then this pin was calling my name, after originally seeing it on Facebook. I had always wanted to do something with the vintage oval mirror in our half bathroom, and saved it when we replaced it with a newer modern one. I just cleaned off the frame really well, popped out the mirror part, and spray painted the frame 'Berry Pink' by Rustoleum. This is my new favorite thing to do, by the way: spray painting things pink;) It's a similar color to Cecelia's crib and is really glossy so it only needed one coats. I had Nate add the chicken wire for me (which we already had in our garage) and bought a few cheap clothes pins from Michaels. Then I cut little triangles out of the quilt scraps I have, hot glued those to twine, and now we are on our way to the final product.













I still want to add a few more cute papers and things to the frame, but it's a start! No clue where this will hang. After the party I'm planning to use it in her room to hold hair bows. Gotta love a double-duty craft!

Next on my list was a wreath, because I've always loved Truman's balloon birthday party wreath and I have actually used it each year. I wanted CC to have a birthday wreath also, and lucky her for being born during a time of Pinterest. So many ideas out there, my favorites were this, and this, and this. I'd already made a yarn-wrapped wreath before and didn't mind the process so I went with that as my base. Bought the wreath, the yarn, and had everything else already. I used felt to cut out the letters, made another pennant banner out of quilt fabric scraps, and hot glued my way to this!


The number '1' should be able to come off and be replaced by subsequent ages in the future. It's totally hanging on the inside of our door right now and I probably wont' take it down for a long time;) Can't decide if I want to move it to the outside door for the party or keep it in here and do something else on the front door. We will see.






Then comes the high chair. Ah, the high chair. Our neighbor gave us her old wooden chair which was a total score on our parts. I cleaned it off, primed it with Rustoleum 2x coverage spray, waited a day, and then painted it with the Berry Pink color again. I was SO CLOSE to getting full coverage with just one can but ended up having to buy a second can for the final touches. So basically 1.5 coats on this baby. I did not sand and probably could have gotten away without the primer, since the Rustoleum spray paint is for any surfaces. But in the fine print it does say if you are painting bare wood that you should really use primer for best effects. I'm a rule follower, what can I say?







Sort of tedious but for a prop that is basically only for one day during smash cake extravaganza, it will do just fine. I picture tying a bunch of turquoise balloons to the back, putting a 'one' banner on the front, and letting our girl go to town on some cake in this pink chair. Painted high chairs are definitely a Pinterest trend right now but I'm totally on board with this one;)




Last project I've done so far: monthly baby heads! I actually have two other monthly banners planned (for the chair shots and also the quilt shots) but the 'face' shots had to be done this way after finding this pin. Freaking hilarious, right?




I gathered up the face shots I've taken each month, converted them to black and white in photoshop and cropped them into squares to get them roughly the same size. I printed them at home on our Canon printer and then cut around the faces. Next I made the party hats out of the same scrapbooking paper as the heart garland. Used a heart hole punch for the numbers, wrote the months on there, and glued a pom pom to the top. Obviously I still have to glue them all to some twine and figure out where to hang them (and get the 12 month picture taken and added!) but it's almost done. I am obsessed with sequential monthly pictures like this----hence why I will have three different poses displayed at Cecelia's party;) It's just too much fun to see how they've changed over the first year, and I'm a sucker for anything monotonous and symmetrical. Type A, what?

Other projects planned? Her photo slideshow and maybe a video slideshow, mantel decor, the chalkboard stats poster, table runner, front door/outside decor, and of course the food. Somehow that list doesn't seem too terrible and I'm glad I'm starting a lot of these projects early, so that I can enjoy them and not feel the time crunch too much.

Off to resume my previously scheduled crafting time. Don't be surprised if I don't post much over here, but if you follow me on Instagram (mrsjuliagoolia) you'll probably have more kid-and-party posts than you can tolerate. ;)