Penelope’s First Birthday Party ~ Post One

Penelope’s first birthday party was this past weekend.  I think it was a great success!  Penelope had a great time – and so did Gary and I, and the big kids.  I hope that our guests enjoyed themselves as well. 

I’m absolutely thrilled with how everything for Penelope’s party turned out.  For this post, I’ll focus on the “party things” and save the guests and events for later posts.  Unlike the kids’ birthday party, I was actually able to take some of the photos in this post myself.  Luckily, Cathy and Amanda were kind enough to serve as photographers for the party so that I could focus on the party while knowing that the party would be properly photographically documented. 

I started the process for Penelope’s birthday party by contacting Kristy with Allison Powell Designs.  I gave her some vague idea of what I was thinking for Penelope’s birthday party – pink and gray, maybe some yellow, birdies, etc.  In response, she sent me some fabulous party printables!  I can’t say how much I love what she designed for Penelope’s party. 

I received digital files of every type of party item you can imagine, and I used almost all of them.  You will see them again and again in the party blog posts.  Kristy’s design served as the inspiration for our entire party.

My biggest worry was the cake.  I knew what sort of cake I wanted, but just wasn’t finding the right person to make it happen.  I worked very hard on finding just the right person to make the cake.  I got very, VERY lucky when I found Malinda Nichols.  All I did was send her a copy of the invite that Kristy designed and a few links to cakes I found on the internet and liked . . . and I got this. . . .

Malinda also provided a fabulous smashcake for Penelope!

Penelope’s party hat was designed by Prop Shop Boutique using the decorative papers provided by Allison Powell Designs.

I think that the whole party set-up was just perfect for Penelope.

When we were kids, for our birthdays, my mom let us pick out what we wanted for dinner and for dessert.  My brothers and I ALWAYS asked for spaghetti and strawberry cake.  Always.  I’ve wanted to incorporate strawberry cake into our kids’ birthday parties, and finally found a way to do that by using the cake recipe for cupcakes.

It just made everything seem more like a birthday party with the strawberry cake around.

For our party favors, I ordered some fabulous bird-shaped bird seed favors from Nature Favors.

And the most important decoration was for Penelope.  She was very stylish in her custom retro ruffler from Rae Gun! 

The retro ruffler was nicely complimented by a bib from Bean Pickle Sprout.

Penelope seemed to approve.

What a happy baby!  I just love everything about this birthday party – especially the birthday girl!

More soon. . . .