Samantha and Amelia’s “Baby Love” First Birthday Party: The Decor

March 19, 2014 by

I’m back, and, fortunately, have officially survived pulling off Samantha and Amelia’s “Baby Love” first birthday party! The pink and gold infused party was on Saturday and I couldn’t be more happy (and more sad) that it’s over! The party was months in planning, but that last week was where all of the details came together, meaning some pretty late nights for me and my slaves family who came a few days in advance to help out.

There was absolutely no down time at all last week as I had everyone working on some task or another every second of the day, whether that meant watching the twins so that I could get some baking done, wrapping thirty chocolate heart lollipops in cellophane, running to the grocery store, or cutting out a bazillion hearts out of scrapbook paper. The party seriously wouldn’t have been half-finished if it weren’t for my family, and even though it wasn’t much a vacation for them, I was glad they were here!

That being said, I had so much fun planning and putting together the party, that I’m also sad it’s over, even though it was stressful as it got down to the wire. At least I will have some great photos taken by Aunt Sarah to look back on. That, and my “Twins’ 1st Birthday” Pinterest board I’ve been pinning to for the past six months, will keep me reminiscing for some time to come.

Since I have so many pictures from the big event, I’m dividing up the posts so that the Internet doesn’t explode. Part one is the party decor…enjoy!

The invite (private information redacted, obviously):

I ordered the invites off of MyExpression’s Etsy Shop and printed them off at Staples on cardstock. The back of the invite: 

The party was held at Great Uncle Steve and Great Auntie Lynn’s house, which was the perfect location for their party, with plenty of indoor and outdoor space. We were so grateful that they let us take over their house for four days…literally…four days! Jake and I arrived late on Wednesday to completely revamp their entire house with all things pink, gold, glitter, hearts, and Samantha and Amelia.

Unfortunately, by Thursday, almost every pom pom and banner we had set up had fallen down since, not wanting to make a million tack holes in their walls, we had originally used tape to hang everything up. In the end, we used tacks anyway, and everything stayed up this time.

By Friday, all of the wall decor was up and it was time to get started on the table decor. I also had my dad and brother making final runs to the grocery store and hauling vases, picture frames and food from my house to Aunt Lynn’s.

Saturday morning, the family was over at the house bright and early (except for Jake and my mom, who were assigned the most important task…making sure Samantha and Amelia went down for their nap on time so that they would be up and rested when the party started). My dad was assigned to pick up the balloons, ice and sandwiches, while the rest of us set up the outside decor, finalized the buffet and dessert tables and made some of the food that had to be done at the last minute.

By 11 a.m., the first guests arrived and everything was ready to go!

My goal when guests walked in was that the “Baby Love” theme and colors of pink and gold would hit them in the face. I hope I succeeded!

The grand entrance. I printed the “Happy Birthday Samantha and Amelia” banner on cardstock using a template from the Etsy shop, Inklings Paperie. My mom and I made the tassel garland with tissue paper using a Pinterest tutorial (finally– something I found on Pinterest that actually worked!). I bought almost all the decor that I didn’t make myself (pom poms, table runners, candle votives, etc.) online at Koyal Wholesale, which had some great prices on party supplies. The tablecloths, plates and napkins were from BirthdayExpress.com, another site with good deals.

I re-used the silver dollar store frames left over from my Dad’s 60th birthday party and had Jake spray paint them with sparkly gold spray paint. I made the welcome sign (and all the other signs) using Photoshop and printed them out at Costco. 
The sign-in table. 
Samantha and Amelia each had their own guest book so that they will each be able to have a little keepsake from their party when they get older. I made the guest books with Shutterfly and used pictures from their 1st birthday photo shoot inside. 
The time capsule was also a part of the sign-in table. Guests were asked to write what they think Samantha and Amelia will be when they grow up on the cardstock hearts and then put them in the adorable heart boxes I found at Target. The time capsule will be opened on Samantha’s and Amelia’s high school graduation in 2031 for some fun laughs!
We got some pretty creative responses:
“When you grow up, both of you will run the largest healthcare insurance company…on the moon!” -Cousin Ben
“Amelia–PhD from Yale/Harvard in theoretical physics; leave the field to take up trucking. Never look back.” -Uncle Mike
“Samantha–First female president of Somalia. Chooses a life on the high seas as a pirate, instead.” -Uncle Mike
“Since you were six days old, there has only been one career option for your future: Duo DJs., Sammy D. and Amy J. Consider the fact that your parents didn’t enroll you in Baby DJ School a fail.” -Aunt Sarah
I ordered these first birthday chalkboard prints from the Etsy shop, KatesKanvas and then printed them at Costco as 16×20 prints. My dad then mounted them on black foam board and Jake hung them up with ribbon. I loved these because they listed some fun facts about each girls, including height and weight, favorite foods and things they like to do. They are now hanging up in the nursery and are so cute to look at.  
What once held pictures of my aunt’s family was completely replaced with twins, twins and more twins!
I bought the paper mache number 1 at Hobby Lobby. My mom coated it with Mod Podge and then poured glitter all over it.  
I ordered some pink Jelly Bellies and pink M & Ms from Amazon and placed them in candy dishes around the house.  I also placed some of the Shutterfly books I’ve made for the girls around on the coffee tables. What’s sad is that just one of those 120 page books only encompasses 1 or 2 months of the twins’ lives!
I had several dollar store clear vases left over from my Dad’s 60th party, so I took off the burlap flowers I had on them originally and hot glued some sparkly gold sequin ribbon from Joann’s, plus a giant, golden sunflower from Hobby Lobby, and voila! Transformed!
I used the Cricut (and had various family members help) to cut out the hearts for all the heart garlands. We must have cut out hundreds of hearts! I ordered the paper mache letters from Hobby Lobby and my mom used some gold chevron wrapping paper I found at Target to Mod Podge on the letters. 
The buffet table. I bought several yards of gold fabric at Joann’s to create the tablecloth overlay. 
Decorations on the buffet table. 
The dessert table. 
I already had these white square and rectangular vases and decorated them with gold sequin ribbon and giant sunflowers for the table centerpieces.
Out of everything, the monthly photo garland was the most time-consuming…it took forever to choose just one picture from each month! One garland had newborn-12 month photos of Samantha, one garland with Amelia and one garland with them both. I created the little monthly circles in Photoshop and attached them to some gold ribbon with clothespins that Jake spray painted for me with gold glitter spray paint. I then mod podged glitter all over the paper mache “ONE” letters that you see in the background. 

 

The garlands were also the most time-consuming to set up…it took just the right amount and angle of tape to keep them from falling down. So annoying, but worth it!

“Double the Baby Love” banner. 

Outside decor: “THE BIG ONE” pennant banner made with my Cricut. 

Outside table centerpieces. 

I loved the sparkly-ness of the gold sequin ribbon!

We attached some pink polka dotted seamless paper from the deck so it hung down for a photo backdrop. I found some wood photo props, like glasses and mustaches, at Michael’s, which my mom then painted in a whimsical manner!

For the kiddies, I had a t-shirt-making station. I placed a bunch of plain, pink shirts in Samantha and Amelia’s size out, along with fabric markers, fabric paint and iron-on appliques for the kids to decorate the shirts with. This kept the kids busy for a long time!

I also had some more unpainted photo props at the kids’ craft station for the kids to paint. 
The smash cake stations! I hand tied the pink ombre tutus using baby headbands and three different shades of tulle, with the idea of having these be their birthday tutus. However, it ended up being pretty hot that day, so I decided to only have them wear the tutus for pictures instead of at their actual party. 
I made the little “A” and “S” hearts using my Cricut and bought the high chair tutus at Hobby Lobby, although they would have been pretty easy to make. 

For the party favors, I gave out pink chocolate heart lollipops with white and gold drizzle. Originally, I wanted to make and decorate sugar cookies as the party favors, but after multiple attempts at getting the cookies to retain their heart shapes in the oven, I gave up…too many of them came out looking like blobs, instead of hearts. So, on to plan B, which my mom suggested. Jake and I made the hearts by pouring melted pink chocolates into a heart-shaped lollipop mold and popping it into the refrigerator to set. The only problem was that I had just one mold and each mold only made six, so it was a total pain to make these! Next time, I will definitely get more than one mold. My mom then wrapped the chocolate lollipops with cellophane and tied with ribbon. 

 

 Last, but not least, we had TONS of balloons…pink balloons, gold balloons, heart balloons, and giant “one” -shaped balloons. I bought most of the balloons online off bargainballoons.com, which was way cheaper than buying them from the party store. A special thanks to Uncle Mike who was tasked with un-bunching and then re-bunching all 26 of them, since the high-school-aged employees at Party City are notoriously incapable of following directions. No offense if you work at Party City…I can only disparage them because in high school, I worked somewhere similar (Party Land), and I know for a fact that putting together a balloon order correctly is NOT that difficult!  

A few days later and I am STILL finding flecks of gold glitter all over my house. After taking down everything from Aunt Lynn’s, I couldn’t bear to see all of the decor put in storage right away, so almost everything is now hanging up at our house, much to Jake’s chagrin. I just can’t get enough of hearts, pink and gold, I guess.

More on the rest of the party details tomorrow!

Lots of love,

Signature

Filed Under: Parties

Comments

  1. Kati says
    March 19, 2014 at 11:33 am

    WOW!! This is amazing!!