I was struggling to find a cute theme for a boys birthday party in the middle of the winter, so I ended up just decorating around some cute colors instead! I started with the balloon garland, which was blue, orange, and yellow.
This worked out really well with the monthly milestone pictures I took of Callum since his blanket in all of those photos matched the blue balloons almost perfectly! I wanted to display all of his pictures, and it turned out to be a perfect cheap and easy decor idea. The pictures are simply taped on to a piece of sanded plywood.
The cake was a bit more of a challenge for me. I am definitely not a baker, and decorating cakes is not my forte. However, I managed to pull something together that sort of went with the colors of the balloon garland. Pro tip: if you are also not great at decorating cakes, go with a "messy" look like me. Covers all your mistakes! :) I used two layers of a four inch cake for the perfect sized smash cake.
We had a few family members over with a total of thirteen people, so the next thing I had to think about was food. I wanted some foods that were a little easier to eat away from the table since everyone would be eating in the living room, so I opted for a few finger foods: fruit, mini quesadillas, mac n cheese bites, and mini pizzas. For desert, we had mini cupcakes and Crumbl Cookie's cake batter dupe! I'll share all the recipes I used at the end.
With my first, I didn't do any type of smash cake set up, and I regret it. It's all about the cute pictures to remember this day forever for me! It doesn't have to cost a ton to get a little backdrop for the smash cake photos either. Here's what we did. I used the tablecloth from the food table as the back drop and added a small orange garland taped to the table cloth. I put a neutral sign in the back ground just for added texture. Here's a trick for the rest of the set up: have it all ready under your table, so when its time to do the smash cake, you just have to slide it out and place the cake in there! I had some brown paper wrapping paper for the disposable bottom layer and a neutral and textured rug on top of that with a few scattered dried orange slices. The cake and trays were already set up on the table just like this! Lighting was still an issue at 7p.m. at the end of December, but it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. If you have a winter baby too, don't worry about it too much!
If you are planning a birthday party soon, just remember that you don't need to spend a ton of money if you don't want to! I see all those massive one year old parties on social media too! Yes, they are absolutely gorgeous, but some of us don't like to go quite as crazy and that's ok too! I spent right around $20 on the decorations for this party. That's it! The food added to my total cost of course, but you could just do dessert in the afternoon or evening and skip that all together. Use some creativity, shop your house, and take a lot of pictures! Enjoy those little ones while you can, it all goes by too quickly!
Deanna
mini quesadillas: https://pin.it/2QRm5Ty
mac n cheese bites: https://pin.it/16rd4rb
mini pizzas:
ingredients:
sandwhich thins
cream cheese spread
rotisserie chicken
bbq sauce
green pepper
mozzarella cheese
directions:
spread cream cheese on each sandwhich thin half
drizzle bbq sauce on top
top with shredded rotisserie chicken, diced green pepper, and mozzarella cheese.
cook at 375 for about 5 minutes or until cheese is bubbly
Crumbl Cookie Cake Batter Dupe: https://pin.it/7F7uN8R
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