PENELOPE'S 1ST BIRTHDAY

I had so much fun planning and putting together Penelope's birthday party. I'm so proud to be able to say that all of this came together completely by myself! We all know the first birthday parties are never really for the children and mama loves her some gold :)

I knew from the beginning of planning I wanted to really convey a crisp, uncluttered and bright setting. I was set on doing a dessert table as well and decided on doing a hot dog bar, since it was still really cute and inexpensive. We have some super amazing friends though and they cooked massive amounts of bbq steak, macaroni salad and appetizers. Truly a blessing to have people help out.

To keep costs manageable, I made myself a per month budget and purchased what I could with that. Anything that didn't fall in that budget got purchased the next month. When the time came for the party it was great because we weren't financially strained trying to get my vision to come together.

We rented the community center in my apartments which was great incase Penelope had meltdown. Also if we needed something we could just run upstairs to our apartment. For the kids, to keep costs down our entertainment was a ping pong table that came with the community center and a bunch of blown up balloons all over the floor.

Penelope had a ball and we got to celebrate with our nearest and dearest. Doing everything I possibly could DIY really kept our costs down and still allowed me to have the party I always wanted for her. 

My precious dessert table. The baby's breath flowers were super cute and frugal and I made that glitter frame. (See the DIY here) Also all the desserts were made by moi, except the cupcakes I picked up from Safeway.

Confetti is super expensive so I bought some tissue paper in metallic and rose at Micheals. I spent a few evenings and naptimes cutting a bunch of confetti myself to cut costs. I loved the idea of fun confetti sprinkles so kept with that theme for the desert.

This background was so cute. I ordered the metallic letters online here and the gold background is just some sequin fabric you can get anywhere online.

Probably my top favorite of everything was the metallic gold confetti filled balloons. When I picked them up, the girl working there said she had never seen these before, they were so pretty! With these I simply took a bunch of confetti I cut to any store that blows up ballons and asked them to fill them up with it. 

I loved the idea of having a photo chronicle of the past year for Penelope. I printed out all of her photos on my Instagram for the past year at Walgreens using their square prints for like .20 cents per photo. Purchased some mini clothes pins and gold ribbon on sale at Micheals and strung these together chronologically. I loved that it told a story.

I was really particular about cups. I didn't want ugly red cups to ruin the clean vibe, so I found these gorgeous clean plastic cups and pretty gold straws to add detail to the overall look.

I LOVE these beverage dispensers. Great reviews on Amazon and all on point. They aren't glass but still looked super chic and lent to the vibe overall. Get them here.

A closer look at my DIY glitter frames. For the print, I used a free editing program and typed up the quote. Printed it out on my computer for a pretty addition to the table.

My little family :)

The birthday girl <3