So here’s how things panned out behind-the-scenes for Hunter’s 1st Birthday Party..

The invitations were the straightforward part.. since it was just a matter of printing out the digital copy and then sticking it onto red cardboard paper. But, boy, was it laborious! So it was done whilst Chris’ parents and brother was here.. because multiple hands really do make it easier than just one set. It was kinda like our family project 😛

My main issue was the invitee list. When I added it all up.. I ended up with a little over 30 kids (!!). That was WAY to massive a number because I’d actually thought a party with 10 kids would be the most manageable and appropriate.. so in the end I had to cut down on a ton and invited only kids that Hunter has regular playdates with.. especially favouring those about his age. I still ended up with 15 kids invited, but figured that was a good compromise 🙂

 

 

The thing that required the MOST EFFORT was the birthday banner. We wanted a backdrop to take photos against, and I specifically wanted it navy blue painted with silver. So we bought the material at Spotlight and I painted the words on. It took TEN COATS of paint!!! Just so the silver glitter would stand out easily against the background. It was painted over about 4 days, because each coat had to dry before I could paint the next… zzzz…..

Then afterwards came the process of gluing on the wall decals and little stickers that I bought – all spaceship themed of course. At least that part was easy and quick 😛

 

The food trays at the party were all labelled with food cards, using spaceship-themed cardboard cutouts. Simple and easy to do, but I thought it brought out the spaceships theme a lil more 🙂

 

And….. the favour bags. Boy these were fiddly!!!! I guess it’s because I wanted cute ones instead of just standard chuck-stuff-in-and-you’re-done ones. Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a waste of effort as almost all the kids were really young.. so they didn’t appreciate the packaging and the parents opened the bags for them instead 😛

I found silver bags with stars on them (perfectly on-theme!) and blue ribbon. I simply folded the top of the bag over, punched holes at the top, and threaded the ribbon through. Attached to the ribbon was a small little silver spaceship charm – which I’d found on eBay and couldn’t resist 😛

Then, the folded over flap of the bag was sealed down with a spaceship-themed sticker.. with a little “thank you” message from Hunter.

But OMG.. the wrapping of the bags, threading the ribbon, writing and sticking the stickers etc etc too ages!! I would do it all over again when he’s a few years older and all the kids can appreciate it.. but until then, I will probably do simpler ones 😉 Because frankly, only the adults were exclaiming over them and the kids were rather oblivious!

 

You can see the contents above – which was a little noisy-whacker thing (that had “Hunter’s 1st Birthday!” written on it), some snacks, 2 rocket balloons (blow em up and release and they whizz around making a sound), and a little bottle of bubbles.

The bottle of bubbles also took quite a while.. because they came totally plain white. Uhh.. BORING much?! So I got shiny-prism spaceship/stars stickers and stuck them on. I was pretty hell-bent on finding a small bottle of bubbles to pop into the favour bags, cos I know kids LOVE bubbles and it’s perfect for a pool party, no? And happily, the kids enjoyed them. Made the effort worth while!

 

 

The other stuff that was ‘customised’ for the party was the spaceship-themed plates and napkins, and the cupcake stand. All also purchased on eBay 🙂 My original idea was to bake a whole ton of star-shaped cookies, but I couldn’t find star-shaped cookie moulds in time so my cookies were round instead.

Then, the birthday cake. You can see in my previous post that we went with a Pine Garden cake, in triple-chocolate, that I heavily regretted afterwards. But, at least it looked pretty cute! I had it covered in plain chocolate icing.. so that I could put my own birthday candles on it.

The big “1st birthday” candle was purchased from Spotlight, and was placed on the top tier.

The little spaceship-themed candles were placed along the rim of the bottom tier, and are oh soooo cute! They were from eBay too and I nearly died of cuteness when I saw ’em. Wee lil spaceships, space men, planets, monsters, etc!!! Aieeeee!!!

Originally, I was going to have an edible sign on the top, but I’d ordered it online 2 weeks in advance and it didn’t reach in time 🙁 🙁 So I ended up with “Happy 1st Birthday Hunter” piped on with white cream instead.

I thought the candles were adorable and I think I like this ‘look’ better than a full spaceship-shaped cake.. because those tend to have pretty dry/boring cake on the inside. Would probably do it again for subsequent birthday parties.. but with a different theme, obviously.

 

 

Singing “Happy Birthday”
httpv://youtu.be/22sFepOsptQ

Cake cutting!
httpv://youtu.be/Nkf4uFIhLzo

So there you have it! I guess it doesn’t really seem like that much effort.. but for me it was because I’m not v creative nor am I good with crafting with my own two hands. I’d normally just prefer to pay for it instead 😛 So I’m proud I decided to make the effort to, since you only get to celebrate your first-born child’s 1st birthday once!