Our little beauty, Daisy, just turned one. And of course we had a fancy birthday party to celebrate!
I was tired. And I wasn't really into feeling like I wanted to plan a big party. But you know me...I can't pass up that kind of an opportunity. So, the week of her party, we started the planning. I usually plan months in advance, so we had very little time to do everything we wanted.
So to start off, we came up with a "Country fair" theme. Michelle suggested we make bunting (yes, I'm blaming this project on her). So we went up to the Tri-Cities (with all the kids in tow, mind you) and picked out our colors. Notice above the color combinations we came up with. Daisy yellow, caramel brown, burnt red, and black. We cut, sewed and pressed like a thousand little 6 inch triangles in three days. Then Michelle took the triangles home and hot-glued each one onto a twine-like cord. Here's what it ended up looking like below:
Pretty cute. I hung it everywhere. I also went around to like 8 antique shops (something this area has an abundance of) and found old pictures and frames to hang up around the house.
Next came my idea of doily lanterns. I got my idea from Pinterest. love that site. Here's the pin
I started off by getting dollar store punch ball balloons—3 for a buck. You can't beat that price. Then during my trips to the antique stores I bought like a gazillion doilies for $2 and $3 a piece. Then just did the whole mod podge thing. *Although* after the fact I learned an important lesson. Grease up your balloon with like vaseline or cooking spray or something, cuz when you pop the balloons they'll stick to the doilies and you'll lose your round shape. Yep, that happened to me.
Above: what I learned to do after awhile. Just pour that dang mod podge all over the doily and rub it around till it's all soaked through. Then shape it around the balloon. But don't use any water...you need it as thick as possible so it dries harder. And let your doilies dry for a LONG time. I had to do one side at a time because the doilies would fall off of my balloon if I tried rotating the balloon around.
Here are the final products. Again, they kind of lost their shape because the balloon got stuck to them. So I had to blow up another balloon inside to reshape it. That kind of got annoying. Hind sight: I would've given myself more time for these. And I need to figure out another hardening agent to get them to stay in a perfect spherical shape.
My next task was making a Daisy wreath for my door. I got the idea by looking in the pool noodle section at the dollar store because they were out of foam for flower arrangements. So I taped the pool noodle in a circle and then just stuck the flowers in through the foam. Michelle finished it off for me by hot glueing some smaller flowers to the wreath and some fabric circles to create fillers.
Just a pool noodle. Make sure it's taped well. Mine came undone during a wind storm the other day. But it lasted a good 3 weeks outside. So hey, can't complain. It cost me like $5 to make.
My last major project for the party was this fence with a quote on it. In my search for Daisy quotes, I came across this little gem: "Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flowers?" Meg Ryan said this in the movie "You've got Mail" when Tom Hanks brought her flowers when she was sick. So anyway, I love me some Meg Ryan (80's and 90's Meg), and had to put up this quote. My mom owns an online vinyl cutting business, MoreThanVinyl.com. So I just had her cut out the letters in a cute font that I liked and then spray painted the whole fence white. Turned out pretty cute I think. Of course we had to add extra bunting that was lying around too.
Now for the decorations. In the kitchen we had a little watermelon or strawberry theme going on—whatever way you want to interpret those balloons. But we did have strawberry lemonade and fresh fruit kabobs. We also had baked potatoes, steak, pork, pasta salad, homemade rolls and jam, and jello salad. I have to say that it was DIVINE, the yummiest food ever. And I didn't have to make any of it. My in-laws and friends who came brought most of the food. And my husband cooked the steaks. It was perfect.
Next was cake....or cupcakes rather. I am lame in the cake department these days. I had good intentions, but time got ahead of me. So I made chocolate cupcakes. But I tried to cook as many as I could on a cookie sheet and they got squished together and turned out not so round, but more odd shaped than anything. So then, the day of the party I decided to frost like 50 cupcakes 5 minutes before guests were arriving. So yeah, they didn't turn out like the cupcakes I pinned on pinterest. See below:
Yeah. Not quite.
And Daisy wanted to share her birthday party with her "almost" twin, Julia. Julia was born the day after Daisy...even though her mommy was due like three weeks after me. Yep, I was two weeks late with Daisy. But, it's kinda fun that "Daisy June" and "Julia Mae" almost share the same birthday. So we celebrated.
Here's Julia's cute cake that her mommy made. It's rainbow inside!!!! Fancy that? Hmmm, the things you can do with the little bit of help from Pinterest.
We get a little peek inside the cake. I think she ate it all...or somebody did.
Here's Daisy attacking her cupcake that I slaved over.
Trying to put the candle out with her hand. |
Not too happy about that hot thing on the end of the candle. |
Julia Mae |
Daisy June |
We spent the rest of the evening outside playing potato sack races, and other yard games. I was inside dappling in a little face painting too. Here are some of my masterpieces.
Butterfly |
Tiger and Spiderman (or a red faced KISS whichever you want it to be) |
Overall, it was a nice relaxing Sunday. We were glad we could celebrate this special day with Daisy. She was a cutie during the whole party and loved that everyone was there for her. She didn't actually fall asleep until after she blew out her candles and ate her cake...but then zonked out right before it was time to open her presents. Oh well, it's all good. We'll save them for next year.
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