The First Birthday DIY: Eliza Jane Turns 1 – Part 1

We had an AMAZING weekend with Eliza Jane’s first birthday party on Saturday; we had a slew of folks show up and love on her and it was so wonderful!

Today and tomorrow I am planning to share with y’all some of the decorations I did for her first birthday party – the DIY decor!  Disclaimer once again: I am not an artist, I am not a decorating professional, I am merely a momma trying to make our baby girl’s first birthday party a memorable one!

I’m going to start in the dining room.  I only decorated the one area where the cake and cupcakes would be on display.  I put up a little crepe paper curtain on either side of the mirror and added that enormous silver “1” balloon that some of y’all saw me blowing up Friday night on Instagram and FaceBook!

The “E” came from Michael’s, it’s one of the Heidi Swapp Marquee Letter Kits you can purchase and I found it to be loads of fun to create, though I wasn’t super creative…

With the letters or symbols, you basically buy this white shell and create your own “look” with whatever you want.  Paint, tape, paper, whatever your fancy!! I bought the coordinating book of glitter papers for the inside of the E…unsure of whether or not I would use silver or pink.

I sent both of these pics to a friend who has an eye for things like this and she urged me to go pink :)

So with my little template {included in your kit!}, I traced and cut out my E.

 

Then I used a hole punch {!!} to punch the holes out, this is where your lights come into play…and the hole punch made it so much easier!

The next step I did was to take a striped washi tape – I purchased a silver/gray diagonal striped tape, to go along the outside of the letter.  This was not very easy…the E has a few crevices that were difficult to maneuver with the tape…  I got frustrated a time or two and had to keep telling myself to be patient and slow down…  For those of you that know me, you may find humor in that. :-D  And then pressed in my pink glitter paper.

Probably the hardest part came next {and it really isn’t hard at all} – inserting the lights and the bulbs.  Note to you out there who purchase one of these letters, you have to insert the actual bulb caps first from the front side, then the lights through the back.

Finished product

Simply the cutest!  It comes with a little battery pack {takes 2 AAA batteries} that tucks into the back of the letter.  My mom thought this was adorable.

Making my way down the buffet, next we have the cupcakes with “1” pennant flags

I did NOT do the cupcakes or the smash cake.  I originally asked my sweet friend Aimée of Rosie Girl Bakery to make everything since she did for Reynolds’ first birthday and I really wanted to keep some things traditional, but she was in a wedding over the weekend in Nashville, and well, it just didn’t work out.  So, I went to the next best place, Silver Spoon Bake Shop, who made the beautiful cookies I used for my sweet friend, Dana’s baby shower back in February.

I emailed Silver Spoon a picture of the pink in the “E” and told them that was the color pink I wanted as the darker pink on her smash cake and the color for the cupcakes.  As you can see, I ordered regular sized cupcakes and then mini cupcakes…for those watching their figures {hehe} or for little hands.

Meanwhile, I was making the little pennant flags.  When I first sat down to make these about 2 weeks ago, I had in my mind what I was going to do and then I had one of those lightbulb moments where you go, “Wait just a second…I could do this {original plan} OR…I could do this!!”  And I told my husband about the plans.

The original plan was to use this paper, the same papers I had used for her smash cake pennant {hold your horses!, it’s coming!}…

But then I felt like this little roll of washi tape was mocking me from the end of the table…hmmm.

Husband said, “Which one is easier?”, when I told him to two ideas I had.  Well, the tape, duh.  And I had all this tape.

But I decided that I didn’t want to get too crazy, so I stuck with the one that had been mocking me…

I cut little strips of tape and wrapped it around the toothpicks, then cut a “v” to make it look like a pennant.

So here they are…

And then I added the silver glittered “1” stickers I’d purchased.  OH!  And my mom, the genius that she is, recommended that I use the “I” when I ran out of 1s.

Recap of the cupcakes!

Next is the smash cake and OMGGGGG, did it not turn out so adorable?!!?!?!?!

I posted this pic to Instagram and FB with the caption of “In the words of #RachelZoe, ‘I die.'”  I mean, it’s the most.

So to the pennant banner.  I saved the one I made for Reynolds’ first birthday {16 months ago…}, here it is…

I gently pulled off the O-N-E from his and re-glued them to the pink and white twine I’d purchased for making Eliza Jane’s banner.  I then cut out the two end pennants from that paper I originally was going to use as the cup cake pennants and added them to the twine.

Last but certainly not least is Eliza Jane’s little birthday hat.  Which, for those that were at her party, saw that the hat almost got forgotten about!!! We were almost done singing the “Happy Birthday…” song when I looked to the top of the piano and saw it sitting there waiting to be put on her head!  Bless.

So I purchased this little hat back at the beginning of the year.  I was at a great little gift shop in downtown Columbia looking for a baby gift for a friend and saw it sitting there and I purchased it.  Originally thinking that Eliza Jane’s first birthday party would be pink and gold…it was perfect!

But then I changed the color…from gold to silver.  Ha!  Now what.

Well, remember that book of papers I’d purchased for the marquee “E”?  Funny how things can be used in different/unintended ways!

I pulled out the sheet of silver paper and after a few nights of contemplating how to cut out a cone {I mean!!!  geometry was NOT my strong suit!}, I cut out the cone.  Then with my hot glue gun…turned that little bit of gold to silver!

The original plan of the hat was to also include a “1” but the husband thought it was too much, so we left the little hat as she was.

Here it is on the little birthday girl…with her frilly cake!

I feel like that was a lot of DIY in one post, but I promise nothing took very long at all to do.  Let me know if you have any specific questions.  From one craft-challenged mom to any others, “You can do it!”

 

One last thing, I’ve joined up with some fantastic ladies for a great give away this week – a pair of prints by Jenny Highsmith:Just follow the instructions in the rafflecopter below!  The last day to enter is 9/4/15:
a Rafflecopter giveaway