Jacob's First Birthday Party
Instead of using a traditional invitation, I decided to create one online. You can use any of the picture websites and the price comes out to less than most professional printed invitations.. This is a creative and unique way to begin personalizing your event. Personalized touches are what makes your event memorable - this sets the tone for what your guests can expect if they attend.
Since his party had children ranging from 6 months to 12 years old, I decided to skip the goody bags and scatter "goodies" for all ages throughout the party.. Keeping within the circus theme, we provided clown noses, make your own keepsake circus frames, circus tattoos, plus lots of bubbles and sidewalk chalk to keep the children of all ages entertained.
For the food, I chose all finger foods that were kid and adult friendly. The menu included popcorn with various flavors scooped into a carnival-style popcorn box (another take-home goody), mini-calzones and corn dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into elephant and lion shapes (using standard cookie cutters), animal crackers, circus themed chocolate covered oreos (mold found at local craft store), marshmallow sticks, finger jello (also used the circus mold) and of course, cotton candy! I used the food as decor and everything else was kept simple - white linens, red table skirts and spools of tickets. I took white plastic poles (found at any local hardware store) wrapped them in red streamers to look like the big top poles and draped photos of Jacob in between and it became the background for the dessert table.
Speaking of the dessert table....this was my absolute favorite! I wrapped several sizes of boxes with fun wrapping paper. I used one of those giant cupcake molds for the top cake and bought a Dollar Store Topper. For the other boxes, I had a combination of standard cupcakes and cupcakes baked in sugar ice cream cones. These were so much fun for the kids and such a surprise when they thought they were picking up a regular cupcake. I cut holes in the top of the box and slid the cones in so they would be at the same height I simply coated everything in white icing and confetti sprinkles and made the pennant toppers. I googled "free cupcake toppers" and this is what I found - perfect! I printed them out and glued them to toothpicks.