Sure it is a lot easier to hit the party store and buy a pre-prepared theme birthday party kit, but it is a lot more fun to make a party theme yourself. I admit I perused the internet looking for party hats and goodie bags that fit the bill for my daughter's 1st birthday, but nothing seemed quite right. Then I contacted a few Etsy vendors that specialized in custom party gear that didn't bother to write me back. Left with nowhere else to turn I decided to take matters into my own hands. Sure it was a whole lot of work, but the end result was exactly what I wanted. Today on I Love to Create we have part 1 of a 2 part series on how to create your own custom party decorations!
Every good party needs a theme and for this particular birthday I decided to work with Tallulah's middle name, Fawn. I started to go with cherries and powdered wigs since she shares a birthday with George Washington, but that seemed a bit obscure for a 1 year old. Fawns are perky and fun and more importantly between my mother and I we had a ton of them to decorate with. First things first I had a logo designed by Autumn Leah Designs. Doesn't everyone have birthday logos designed? From there all that was left to do was plaster the birthday logo on everything.
Is there anything cuter than kids in party hats I ask you? You might remember from my escapades making fabric covered crowns and pipe cleaner tiaras that I am a firm believer in the idea that a decorated head makes everything more festive. Making your own customized party hats is easy as pie with a little Collage Pauge, colorful pom poms, Tacky Glue, decorative trim and blank party hats available at the party store.
Those of you with an eye for detail might have noticed that I spelled Tallulah wrong with the blocks. I needed to steal an L what can I say. I also went to Home Depot and scored several feet of astroturf to cover all the tables with. I was going for a green grass feel with all my fawn and deer.
I ordered a whole slew of colorful resin fawns from Buzzard Brand. I made souvenir magnets for all the families that attended the party using various plastic cabochons, the fawns and Liquid Fusion Glue.
The little green baggies are filled with fawn shaped soap. Ordered the molds from Bake It Pretty and the soap supplies are Soapy Love.
Cupcake toppers make the party, I'm a firm believer in that. You might recall the set I made for my baby shower. It seemed only fitting that a year later I would make them for Tallulah's 1st birthday party. Using small wooden sticks, card stock, scalloped edge scissors and Acid Free Aleene's Tacky Glue I had a batch of colorful toppers in no time. I tweaked my original logo in photoshop to get the different color combinations and printed them out onto card stock paper.
I'm a bit notorious for taking a theme and running with it. I might have gone a little fawn crazy, you be the judge.
My amazingly talented sister Hope Perkins, who has a deer fetish of her own, did some creative window work for the party. The sliding glass door had a polka dotted fawn on one side and a gnome for the wee ones to pose in on the other.
After making a black cat banner at Halloween I caught a bit of banner fever. Using sticker letters, scalloped trim, cardstock, paper clips, hole punch, Aleene's Tacky Glue Glue Stick and hole reinforcers I made a custom Happy Birthday Tallulah banner that censored the Burt Reynolds picture that lives in my living room.
Remember this is a two part series. Tune in next Thursday for more birthday fawn, I mean fun. So what do you think did I go overboard? What kind of custom party decorations have you whipped up? I need to start planning for next year.
