It’s Time to Party!

We celebrated Avery’s First Birthday at our apartment over the weekend. Much like Harlan’s First Birthday, we decided to have it at our apartment with a few of our closest family and friends. Unfortunately our apartment isn’t the biggest, so we weren’t able to have a huge crowd, but I think it was perfect for us. Avery got a little bit overwhelmed at first with all of the people giving her attention, but she warmed up after a while.

Although we were having a small party, I still wanted to make it special for Avery. Honestly, she had no idea what was going on, but I want her to be able to look back at the photos and see what a great time everyone had celebrating her special day.

When I was planning for her party, I knew that I wanted decorations that were somewhat practical. I wanted to be able to reuse them for another party and as decorations in the girl’s room. I used the girl’s bed sheets as my color inspiration. Their sheets are a light pink, dark pink, and grey, so I started with that. I’m really into metallic gold at the moment and thought that it would compliment well with the colors so I just went with it.

Most of the decorations were bought off of Etsy (which I am completely obsessed with.) I’m really proud of the way that it turned out and couldn’t be happier with Avery’s Birthday Party!

The poms and the tissue paper fringe garland were ordered from PomLove on Etsy. The poms came cut and folded and I just had to fluff. It took me about three hours to fluff all of them, but once you get the hang of it, it was really easy. A couple of episodes of Real Housewives and I was through before I knew it.

The felt circle garland was ordered from Benzie on Etsy.

I handmade the “Happy Birthday Avery” banner. Just simply print out the letters on regular paper. Cut them out. Trace on cardstock. Use exacto knife to cut out. Punch holes in the top of each letter and put string through. This project took a lot longer than I thought it would (almost three hours total.) And to be honest, I probably should have just ordered it on Etsy with everything else. But at least I can use it again for Harlan’s birthday. Just need to cut out some letters for her name.

Our party was at noon on a Saturday. Most New Yorkers don’t do breakfast or lunch on the weekends, they do brunch. So I tried to go with some brunch items at the party.

I found this gorgeous ombre cake and wanted to recreate it as Avery’s smash cake. It was the centerpiece of the table and turned out absolutely amazing.

It was incredibly easy to make. I simply used a boxed vanilla cake mix, three different pink food colors, and a small round baking pan.

Once I mixed the cake mix as instructed on the box, I poured a cup of the batter into four separate bowls. I experimented with the pink food colors to get the perfect ombre look and then separately baked all four layers. Once they were cooled I cut come cake off of the top to make each layer completely flat on top and used a circular cookie cutter to make them a perfect circle.

For the icing I simply bought buttercream icing and put a little bit of pink food coloring for a light pink look. Spread the icing on each layer and stack. This cake was probably my easiest project from the entire party.

These are the best cake pops you will ever taste. Beautiful too. Made by the lovely Lerida from New York Cake Pops.

Harlan is a big donut hole fan, so I was happy when I found these searching Pinterest. They were really easy to make (Harlan even pitched in to help.) And were eaten by everyone almost immediately. Because who doesn’t love a good DD Munchkin?

Found the mini pancake idea through Pinterest as well. They were a little bit more time consuming, but were super tasty.

Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Need I say more?

Bacon on a stick? Yes, please!

Tried to have some healthy options, but of course these beautiful parfaits weren’t eaten by many.

I am flower obsessed. I had a little bit too much fun at the local flower shop on Friday, but I am super happy with the way these turned out.

Loved these wooden birthday utensils. Ordered them from Ceferina Sweet on Etsy.

I really wanted to use mason jars throughout the party because of their simplicity and many uses. I bought the mason jars from Hobby Lobby on sale for 50% off. I really wanted everyone to be able to tell their drinks apart, so I decided to buy chalkboard stickers to stick on the mason jars. They really came in handy when everyone had the same looking drink.

The straws were bought both from Etsy and Amazon.

And brunch wouldn’t be complete without mimosas and bellinis.

That is one happy birthday girl!

I wanted to have a simple backdrop to be able to take photos of Avery rather than our boring white walls. I used two rolls of crepe paper, cut them in long strips and then cut fringe on them and taped them to the wall. It looked great but Avery couldn’t wait to get her hands on it and rip it down. I desperately tried to get a photo before she ripped everything to shreds.

We had the absolute best time celebrating A’s First Birthday.

For some of my favorite photos from the party, check out my post on Babble!