Charlotte's Party

I love all the cute little tutus, onsies and hats and things that are out there for 1st birthday so I had to join in. I found some polka dot fabric that certainly said "party" that I thought I'd make a party hat and dress out of (she can wear a dress again and again right?).

That was the plan anyway. What I thought up in my head seemed cute and it turned out how I had pictured it, but for some reason looking at the real thing, I was no longer a fan... :P. At least not as a dress for other occasions...

Can you say "clown"! I guess that says "party", but quite frankly I'm not a fan of clowns. At least once on, she looked so darn cute anyway. This clown I like!

Maybe I'll have to add a cardigan to play it down for church or something.

So...being the freak of nature that I am, I decided to throw together some party stuff themed after the dress (well, actually themed after the fabric, since I didn't make the dress till the night before). I clearly have an obsession with orange and aqua blue because we had lots of paper scraps and things to use on hand. The only thing we bought were some lunch/treat bags to make flowers.

Honestly, I tell you, putting something together for very little (to no) cost, and up-cycling old stuff is what I like most. For lots of $$$ just about anyone can put together a sweet party, but doing it frugally? That is the creative challenge I enjoy. Granted that usually means its more labor intensive as well, but if your like me, thats fun too. My sleep would disagree, but I can sleep when I die right? :)...

Anyway, I digress, Charlotte's party:

These flowers are SO FAST and EASY. Elyette made 2 of them herself. Her's looked much better than mine.

We cut little triangles from scraps (Jack helped with this one too) and sewed them together in a long strip for a decorative banner. Again, super easy and FAST.

With scraps we also cut a bunch of cone shapes out of paper.

For popcorn

and some much coveted party hats.

Uncle Sam's a good sport :)

I've been wanting to try my hand at those cute iced sugar cookies. You know the kind that look like they probably taste nasty but look really cute. Yeah that kind. Made some of those.

This one, not so fast nor all that easy (well, not for my shaky hands anyway).

The cake was lemon flavored (thanks to my friend Heather for this yummy recipe- I halfed it for a small cake) with homemade strawberry jam for the filling, and freshly whipped cream as the "frosting". Served with strawberries... YUM!

Elyette helped curl the lemon and orange peels that we piled on top.

I used royal icing (as used for the cookies) for the letters. I'm pretty terrible at free handing stuff, so I cheated and printed her name in a cute font, put a piece of parchment over it and traced along a thick piping of the royal icing. Once it hardened I carefully scraped off the each letter and placed it on the cake. EASY!

Munching popcorn while watching her slideshow (Boz's hard work) A tradition thats getting more difficult as we're running out of music options that suit us. Suggestions?

So, obviously this was all totally unnecessary, our "party" consisted of her great grandma Rae, Grandma Debbie, Uncle Sam and us, but fun I couldn't resist.- and some sweet pics of all the fuss she'll love to have later.

Happy Birthday Stinkster!