Henry’s “First Trip Around The Sun” Birthday Party

I had been mulling over the theme for Henry’s first birthday party for several months when I settled on the idea that in his first year on earth he took his first trip around the sun. This is kind of a vague theme and when I did some searching online I couldn’t find anyone else who had done a party like this. So I forged ahead and made things up as I went along.

First things first, the invitation.

I may have gone a little overboard on the decorations for someone who won’t even remember the party but I had a lot of fun planning out all of the little details and creating the different pieces. Besides, Henry did notice the decorations and thought they were pretty cool. He kept pointing to them every time we walked into the room.

The red wall in my dinning room didn’t go with my theme of blue and green so I wanted to cover it up. I stacked three different colored plastic table clothes on top of each other then cut them into strips, leaving about 6″ intact at the top. I then tied knots where I had stopped cutting.

I cut a giant number 1 out of white poster board and glued on circles cut out of blue and green card stock. Then I hung the number up over my background using bakers twine.

In my opinion balloons make a party extra festive so of course we had to hang some of those from the ceiling. Oh, and for an extra special dose of festiveness I hung a paper garland from the ceiling as well. To make your own garland check out my tutorial here.

Let’s take a closer look at the top of the table. We did have a variety of snacks but that was not as important to me as the cupcakes. Mmmmm…..I can’t even begin to tell you how many I have gobbled up this week! Oh, and what is that, I spy some more projects to share with you. Be sure to check out my tutorials on making your own cupcake stand, party hat and cupcake toppers.

Last, but certainly not least, are Henry’s monthly pictures. If you have been following along throughout the year you have seen each of Henry’s monthly reviews. It is hard to believe how much he has changed and grown in such a short time.

I suppose this isn’t technically a decoration but we had a slideshow of various pictures from Henry’s first year playing on our tv during the party. I’ve converted it to a YouTube video (read, 3 days of torture to try and convert and the quality still isn’t that great) which you can watch here.

And now for a few pictures from the party.

Here is the birthday boy! He wouldn’t leave his hat on for more than a few seconds at a time but he was stinkin’ cute with it on.

I am so happy that so many of our friends and family were able to join us in celebrating this milestone in Henry’s life. Henry really enjoyed seeing everyone too. I didn’t know how he would react to so many people in the house at once and if he would get cranky when he missed his nap but he was as happy as could be.

Henry didn’t understand the concept of opening gifts but he sure was excited to see the toys inside! Everyone was so generous and we received some great toys, books and clothes. Henry is going to be one handsome little man!

After opening gifts we sang happy birthday and gave Henry his cupcake. We had held off letting Henry have sweets until his first birthday and he absolutely loved his first cupcake. If you want to see him stuffing his face you can check out this video.

When it was time for everyone to go home we sent them off with a few little favors. There were jars of candies for everyone and there were earth and sun crayons for the kiddos. We also had some paper boxes for the guests to fill with leftover cupcakes. Be sure to check out my tutorial on the party favors here.