1st Birthday Party Prep

Here are some projects we've been working on, in addition to our backyard remodel, for Lemon's first birthday.  Her party was yesterday and we are beat (and still cleaning!), stay tuned for another post full of pics!

First, the lemonade stand for her pink lemonade themed birthday:

Ian built this mini lemonade stand (and I painted it) for Lemon's one year pictures and we put it out front for her party.

I mentioned these letters before, here, but I thought I'd show you how they looked prior to painting.  Salvaged from a restaurant that went out of business near us.

Our pallet couches turned out amazing thanks to our friend Nicole who works at Classic Custom Upholstery.  Her company made the cushions to pallet size and then I found all of the pillows at thrift stores for $3-$6 each.  The table is also pallets, and is on wheels, and the rocking chair is the rocking chair that my mom rocked me in when I was little.  We traded it for a big, rocking recliner (since we have a baby who fights sleep) in the nursery so I painted it and now it looks so cute outside! 

I also had some grimy, old white plant stands, that we loved, so I wanted to give them an update:

I would love to find more and stick with our color theme but we have to wait until summer is over so we can actually fill them with succulents (it's too hot here, they are all dying!). 

Since our party was pink lemonade themed, I knew we had to have lemonade so my friend Jenny let me borrow her super fancy pitchers to serve it in!  We bought organic lemonade and just added strawberries to one and raspberries to the other.  Then, we bought vodka and rum so people could spike theirs if they wanted!

If you like these, Jenny got them at Z Gallerie (and I know this because I broke one cleaning it and bought her a replacement!).

I got a gluten free lemon cupcake mix and made some cupcakes for the party.  I should have bought more of this mix but I only had one box so I made 14 cupcakes.  I hollowed them out and put lemon curd on the inside, then used vanilla frosting, with a bit of Country Time lemonade mix sprinkled in, to frost them.  They were DELICIOUS.  I totally wish I would have made more!

 

My friend Christie came over the day before the party to help me with a craft idea I had.  I wanted to hang up Lemon's monthly pictures so that everyone could see how much she changed each month.  I printed out 4x6 pictures of every month from this blog and she backed them with card stock, clipped them to a ribbon and hung them up.  They are so cute I may just leave them up forever!

I also wanted to display some of the awesome Newborn photos and One Year photos that my friend June took (her website here).  I didn't have enough frames so I just taped them around our kitchen!

Our awesome candy dishes also lent to us by Jenny!  Got the candy bags and stickers on Etsy, the scoops at Party City and the candy on Amazon.

The lemon garland was made by our Instagram friend, @shopbabyh.

I hung streamers and they also look too cute to take down!

This garland, Lemon's cake topper and her high chair sign (you will see this in her party post) were all made by PinwheelLane on Etsy.

 

I made Lemon a gluten free Betty Crocker yellow cake with strawberry frosting and two gluten free pineapple upside down cakes using the same mix.

 Ian didn't think that I made enough cake so I ordered this sheet cake the night before the party.  It wasn't gluten free but it was chocolate and the guests ate about half of it.  I should have just skipped making the pineapple upside down cakes because they were dry (cooked them too long) and just should have ordered this to begin with.  Oh well.

 I got this made by KickAssCraftsShop on Etsy and it turned out so cute!

Lemon's party invite was made by LemonadeDesignStudio on Etsy.  We also asked people to bring a memento for Lemon that would be something she could open and have on her 21st birthday.  I got this idea from the book From Beginning to End:  The Rituals of our Lives by Robert Fulghum, one of my favorite authors.  I will post a picture of her mementos in my party post!

Here we are before guests arrived, ready to party in matching Hello Apparel tanks!