I am a big planner and I love planning parties. I started planning Baby Bear's birthday party about 6 months ahead. The first birthday is a big deal in my family, especially with Baby Bear being the first grandchild for my parents and Papa Bear's parents. So I knew that we would have to go big. On top of it all, I have a large extended family and so it was going to be big no matter what.
I had never planned a kids party and I was excited. I decided on a jungle theme for my little girl's party. It just sounded like a fun theme, plus Baby Bear really likes animals and one of her favorite books is "Goodnight Gorilla." I also thought it would be a good theme for an outdoor party in the park. I started off with animal prints and brown and lime green. I also wanted to add some bright colors to go along with the jungle theme, so added orange and dark pink (to make it a little girly) to the mix. I love how all the colors went together with the animal print.
My favorite part was my cupcake table. I decided not to do a cake and to just serve cupcakes. With 100 people, that mean a lot of cupcakes. I baked 9 dozen cupcakes and designed cupcake toppers to match our theme and colors. My very dear friend, Aileen from A Master Creation frosted all the cupcakes the day of the party and baked Baby Bear's smash cake that went perfectly with our theme. To top the table off, she made some of her famous sugar cookies that we put around to fill the open spaces. I was so happy she made some cookies.
It was a lot of cupcakes and my biggest fear was that no one would eat cupcakes and that we would have to bring home tons of cupcakes. I made it home with only 8 cupcakes. Not bad! Everyone seemed to enjoy the cupcakes.
To make the park gazebo a little more festive, I added some decorations. Instead of balloons to decorate, I used these animal print lanterns around the gazebo. They were perfect!
I put together Baby Bear's monthly photos with animal print backgrounds and put them around the gazebo. This was fun to make and see how she has grown and change in the last year. My aunt even asked if she could take home one of the photos. That was really sweet.
I designed a banner to match her invitations. I never got it to hang just right and the wind didn't really help. Oh well.
I also made a name banner to add to the decor.
I had so much fun making a designing the decorations. Papa Bear thought I was a little crazy. For the last few months, each night once I had put Baby Bear down to bed I worked on different projects. It was all worth it to see it all come together. I am a detail oriented person (if you work with me, you know that that is very true), so I am all about the details. I realize not a lot of people will notice, but I do. I wanted a great birthday party for my Baby Bear.
Photos by Leslie
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