Babies First Birthday Countdown!

Posted on the 10 February 2014 by Sparklesandstretchmarks @raine_fairy
Well I can hardly believe it but it's true....in just 8 short weeks, Tyne will be celebrating his first birthday!
As I'm rather obsessive about such events, this means I need to get my planning hat on NOW!!!
I have been thinking about it for a good month or two now, and have come up with a theme and a few ideas of how I want the celebration to be.
Here's what I have so far.
Theme
I want the color scheme to be lots of baby blue & white - I LOVE those colours and they obviously just scream "Baby Boy" so what could be more perfect?!As for the theme, I had a long think about what Tyne likes and I came up with teddy bears - he LOVES his toy Puppy and pretty much any stuffed animal so I thought something involving teddy bears would be great for him - so I decided on a Teddy Bears Picnic theme.
Venue
As he is only 1 Tyne obviously doesn't know very many people - so we will just be inviting family and a few little babies that he knows locally, so there should only be between 5 - 9 children here and about 10 adults. 
For that number we don't need a venue, our living room is big enough to host that number of people.
So the party will be at home!
Cake
I am not usually a fan of number birthday cakes but for some reason, I think they are completely necessary for a first birthday!Its the first actual figure you reach and for that reason I see it as a bigger deal than the other ages - so I knew I had to have a Number 1 birthday cake.
I considered buying one but I thought it would be a really nice thing to try to make it myself.
I am not known for my baking skills so I am very nervous doing this - luckily for me the lovely people at Hobbycraft stepped in to help me out by allowing me to choose a selection of cake making goodies from their Newton Abbot store.
I LOVE shopping at Hobbycraft, it is absolutely one of my favorite stores and I could browse it all day - I use it a LOT for supplies for my crafting business - the assistant manager Lee at the Newton Abbot store was very helpful and accomodating while I was there making my selections - here's what I came away with:

This 1 shaped cake tin is just perfect! Hopefully this will mean getting the shape correct is pretty fool proof!!(£16.00 from Hobbycraft)This selection of goodies should help to make decorating it more simple! (the teddy bear is for making biscuits!)
I plan on using roll-out white royal icing to cover the cake, and then using the Dr Oetker Designer Icing in Baby Blue to decorate around the edge of the cake.
I bought a large silver cake board, and around the 1 cake I will dot cupcakes which will be in these cute blue & white polka dot cases - I'll use the Vanilla cupcake squirty icing to decorate them and finish them off with blue sugar sprinkles .
I also bought some food dye to make the inside of the cake baby blue, which I think will be cute.
I bought a cake writing pen in Baby Blue too as it would be nice to somehow have his name on the cake - perhaps down the center.

Hobbycraft have a wide range of ready-made sugar art which are ideal for novices like me! I think this will make a lovely finishing touch to the cake along with his big "1" candle!
There was lots of different sugar art to choose from and prices started at £4.00

I will also be doing a "cake smash" earlier in the day, but I will NOT be using my masterpiece for that!Instead I'll be buying a cheap cake from the supermarket - I want lots of photos of Tyne smashing up his cake wearing just a nappy and a party hat, surrounded by balloons!!
Decor
As I've mentioned, I want everything baby blue & white.
My vision is a table covered with a baby blue table cloth, baby blue plates and cutlery, and a selection of teddy bear and baby blue themed goodies to choose from.
I have so far picked up with blue swirly hanging decorations and hanging blue 1 decorations to hang above the buffet table, some personalised birthday banners, and a blue & white gingham look cupcake stand.



I recently discovered a great website called Perfect Party UK who stock a fantastic range of 1st birthday products, which you can see HERE
The below items all came from Perfect Party UK & as you can see they are just what I wanted!
Baby blue tablecloth, cups, plates, cutlery and party bags which will look so cute tied with baby blue ribbon!

They also sent these cute Teddy Bears picnic themed food boxes, which I think are great for young kids - so instead of sitting with their food on plates and probably spilling it everywhere, they can have these little boxes instead!
The teddy bear themed 1 balloon is also perfect for the occasion and will serve as a centrepiece on the buffet table!

The Food
The childrens food will be a mix of teddy bear and blue themed.
There were will be a big teddy bear shaped jelly (hopefully blue if I can find blue jelly!), and of course Pom Bear teddy bear shaped crisps are a must along with a bowl of gummy bears!
I am also going to be making teddy bear shaped sandwiches

And I will be attempting these teddy bear shaped cake pops too!

As for the blue side of things, I will be doing blue candy floss on sticks, blue marshmallow pops, blue candy canes, and a big bowl of blue jellybeans and blue flying saucers...and blueberries for a healthy option of course!
Rather than doing buffet food for the adults, I'm just going to serve jacket potatoes with chilli con carne - so much easier!!!! There will be plenty of cakes & sweet stuff to go around!
The Invitations

As you can see, the invitations are all done & dusted!
My friend Lauren from Mrs Hippo & Me is amazing at finding bargains, and she told me that Snapfish had a promotion on offering completely FREE personalised photo invitations! I didnt even have to pay postage and you get 20 which is more than double what we need, but just ideal!
Sadly the writing on the front came out quite unclear but I think I can fix it by going over it with a fineliner, and for free I can't complain!

So what's left to do?!
There are gifts to finish off (though I only have one thing left to buy, but thats a post for another time!) and Tyne's outfit to buy (and something for me to wear too, I`ll need to fit in with the baby blue theme!)
I have the party activities pretty much planned out but again, a post for another time!
So really all that's left to do is buy some balloons, finish off the decorations, make the banner I have seen on Pinterest, and....oh yes....invite people!!!
Have you ever made your childs birthday cake? Any tips for a first timer?! As always, I'd love to hear from you!
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