Where it all began!

When my daughter turned one I was SO excited to throw her a birthday party. I had never thrown a party before, of any kind, let alone one for kids.  It was kind of intimedating, but I was determined it was going to be amazing for her. Even though it is impossible, I wanted to make it so special she would remember it for years to come! lol, delusional mother or what?  Anyways, not having ANY idea what I was doing, or being aware of all of the wonderful things available online, I was pretty limited to my own imagination. I think it turned out pretty good for what it was, however.

I had her party at the local Pet Land.  They do a great little animal presentation.  It was a lot of fun and not very expensive.  Plus NO CLEAN UP!  Always a great bonus. 

I got the vine for the banner at Walmart, and traced and cut out "Happy Birthday" out of felt paper in animal prints.

I found little painted animal shapes at michaels for $0.39 a piece. (which made me VERY excited) so I hot glued them to a little piece of wood so they would stand up straight and placed them around the room, on tables, around the food and cake, etc.

The cake was two-layers. Bottom layer was chocolate, top was vanilla. I used fondant for the first time. It really wasnt as hard as I thought it would be. But my cakes have def. improved since this one.

I painted little wooden letters from Michaels pink and hot glued them to tooth picks for the letters. and the palm trees were $0.35 just like the animals!  The hot pink ribbon around the bottom is to cover my fondant "inexpertise".

I got some super cute safari fabric at Walmart for cheap so I bought a yard and made a little placemat for thecake to sit on.

I found little sun hats at the dollar store instead of the typical paper party hats. I sewed on animals that I cut out of the left over safari fabric and hot glued hemp around them to make "safari hats"!

For snacks I had dips and veggie trays for the adults.  For the kids there was animal crackers in animal print boxes, and PB&J sandwhiches cut out with animal shaped cookie cutters.

The favors were small bags with animal pictures on them. Each had a play dough with animal playdough press, animal stickers, and animal figurine. All found at the dollar store.

Even though I had no idea what I was doing, and had no direction..this party was a BLAST!  Plus this is where I realized that there is nothing more that I love to do than to plan and host parties!!