Our little Emerson is one TODAY! Happy Birthday to you little man. If you’d like to take a journey back in time and read all about his birth, click here.

Here’s a look at how we celebrated Emerson’s birthday this past weekend.
I always hate it when my babies get older. I think first birthdays are always hard on mamas.

Thankfully, I’ve been thinking about Emerson’s birthday for awhile. You may recall the post I did with his inspiration board. I’ve been bookmarking any ideas using Delicious . (If you haven’t heard of Delicious, it’s an awesome tool to store your bookmarks. Delicious is a free service that allows you to login and access your bookmarks from any computer. You can also organize, search, and share your bookmarks. I encourage you to try it out. NOTE: This was not a paid advertisement. Your current programming will continue now).

I knew I wanted to do a vintage style first birthday party. Since Emerson is our third son, I feel like I have to be a bit more creative. We’ve already done many of the “traditional” party themes. Emerson’s birthday invite was the first piece that set the ton for the card. I created a vintage heavily distressed book invitation complete with a removable book slip cover. Courtney, from Courtney Jade Photography took the amazing photos of Emerson and was kind enough to blog about his invitations. If you’d like to see more photos of his invites visit Courtney’s post.

I booked the party at Gymboree Play and Music. It was so fun and the staff was amazing. We had help from Lauren and Sarah (staff at Gymboreee) running the party and cleaning up. They both really helped to ease my mind and were willing to pitch in when and where ever I needed them! Thank you guys! (Check out my fashionable pink cast too!)

I literally brought in my whole house for Emerson’s party. I had a ton of help though. My Mom and sisters, Kellie and Jamie, came early to help me set up the dessert table. Thank you guys for supporting me and putting up with my craziness. Since I broke my arm in early November, I really took it easy. I “made” many things that just required some extra chocolate or assembly. I got a ton of ideas from the Hostess Blog. It continues to be a place I visit for inspiration. One of the items that was a huge hit was the Candy Cane Mint Milanos. They were so easy to make. Emphasis on easy! Hostess Blog has great decorating ideas too. I love these picture frames that were used as signs at one of the parties that was featured.

Okay, so without further ado, here is Emerson’s Dessert Table.

A few of my favorite things were these adorable polka dot suitcases. I purchased them all the way from Australia from Retro Bird Designs. I also loved the little picture frames I saw on Hostess Blog that I purchased at Ikea for only $0.99 each. I used them all throughout the party. Aren’t they cute?

I went with a “Milk and Cookies” theme for the dessert table. I created an assortment of cookies, most of which I didn’t even have to bake. It was so easy and quick. Who knew if you just added chocolate to pre-made cookies it made them taste better and look prettier?

Do you remember the business veture I was getting into with my sisters, Lovedrunk Designs? Let’s just say we haven’t had any time to work on our new business very much. I did some practice screen printing for the party though. I gave each of the kids their own screen printed muslin bag with their name on it. I also made some extra bags with the words “thank you” on it.

Continuing on with the cookie theme I made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and sewed them in glassine bags that I purchased from Garnish. I also bought these super cute wooden forks there too.

One of my favorite items were the mini glass bottles and retro stripe straws! We filled them with chocolate milk and they were just the perfect size for little ones. These really added that little something “extra.” Don’t even ask me what lengths I had to go to to track these bottles down. Oh well, it was all worth it and I will have them forever.

I am planning on doing a quick tutorial on the little cupcake stands that I made for each kid. For now, you will just have to check out the photos. These were super easy to make too and I am in LOVE with how cute they are. Check back tomorrow for a diy tutorial.

Don’t you love them? If you know me at all, you know I love cupcakes. I always make cupcakes. My favorite flavor is banana. For Emerson’s party, I made both banana and coconut. I’m still partial to banana though!

I didn’t want the kids to have to carry all of their goodies so I purchased little polka dot gable boxes to put all of the party favors in. I made little “library cards” to clip on the boxes so each kid had a label on their own box. With so many kids, I think over labeling their items is the best way to go.

Here are some additional photos you may enjoy.

I will do a follow up post on the little cupcake stands with instructions and a list of supplies you will need. If you have any questions, let me know. I’d be happy to share all of my secrets with you for a price 🙂 Just kidding. Ask away!

Happy Birthday Emerson!

**I’d like to give a special thank you to my husband for putting up with me through all of this party planning. He spray painted the cute cupcake stands for me too. Thank you honey! I’d also like to thank my dear friend, Laura for being there to bounce ideas off of and to helping me design the dessert table. Though she couldn’t be at the party she helped me assemble Emerson’s invites and she also helped me set a “dry-run” of the table. You’ll never know how much I appreciate your constant support! Thank you!**

39 comments

  1. Teresa Han says: December 8, 2010
  2. Leslie says: December 8, 2010
  3. Kathleen Studer says: December 8, 2010
  4. Hannah says: December 9, 2010
  5. Grandma Warrick says: December 14, 2010
  6. Kellie says: December 14, 2010
  7. Maile says: January 6, 2011
  8. Sarah says: February 19, 2011
  9. Angela says: June 24, 2011

Trackbacks and pingbacks

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