Woodland Themed 1st Birthday

We had an awesome day for Millie's 1st Birthday!

My little lady bug.

Now we're on a tight budget with me staying at home looking after the kids, so I had to be careful. Parties can easily get out of hand so this is what we did.

1. Hired the local hall for the day £10 per hour charge. (I don't have a big enough house to host at home)
2. Did a BBQ, pulled pork was the main dish, which was cooked in a slow cooker the night before. Minimal effort and just reheated on the day.
3. All games were home made with crafty bits we had around the house.
4. Most of the decorations were home made.
4. We had a bouncy castle which was hired to us for free from a friend in exchange for some baby sitting the week before.

Hanging Decorations

Home made decorations included loads, and loads of these paper lanterns and fans. All used from some super cheap tissue paper and looked lovely hanging from the high ceilings.

Room Decor

A friend had this tree and kindly let me borrow it for the day to add to the woodland feel. I had bought these paper photo frames very cheap (£1.50 delivered) and got a load of photos printed for free. You can get loads of free prints online when signing up to new photo printing sites. 

I used the cake as a centre piece. Above the cake table I placed the wooden letters I'd decorated. The giant number 1 was made from a cardboard box and wrapping paper off cuts.
I also bought a helium canister (£25) and used the balloons to decorate the venue. At the end of the party I handed out the balloons as party favours so I got my monies worth out of them.

These are the toilet roll mini pinatas I made for the little ones. They loved these!

I also made a large pinata for the older kids to enjoy. I made this with off cuts of the wrapping paper and a spare balloon. Filled with sweeties and confetti which was off cuts from making the tissue paper fans. 

 Happy Birthday Millie Moo!

Baby Pinata

This will seem a bit of a random blog as I've not yet mentioned but our little-one is turning one very soon, so I'm in full party planning mode.

The theme of the party is yet to be revealed, however I've been racking my brains trying to think of party games for 15+ children ranging from 5 months old to 10 years. We have a bouncy castle booked but I wanted to add something a bit different to the usual pass the parcel. So I came up with this one, baby-friendly Pinata's. The idea of my older toddler trying to hit a box full of sweets with a stick around a load of babies did not fill me with joy, but this will hopefully fill them with joy.

These are pull Pinata's. Hopefully even the very little ones will have fun with these.

The finished baby pinata's ready to make a mess.

Essentially these are mostly toilet roll/ kitchen roll centres stuffed with crepe paper and toys, which you hang high above the children. The toys are tied with ribbon which when pulled will release the confetti and toy.

Firstly after collecting the rolls of different lengths and widths, I placed a paper end on the roll to stop the filling falling out. I cut a little slit to pass the ribbon through. The paper used is matching wrapping paper to the party theme.

I used 4 different papers which look good miss matched on each roll. I wrapped the rolls to completely cover. I then threaded the ribbon through the slit and tied it to a toy. I bought a load of party bag filler toys for only 15p - 25p each. Obviously only selecting light weight items in case they land on anyone. I part filled the roll with cut up crepe paper then placed in the toy. I topped the toys with paper to hide the toys inside.
Tip: I marked the inside of the roll to indicate whether the toy was one for a girl, boy or unisex. Therefore on the day I can make sure no boys get any butterfly hair clips and avoid any upset.

Filled tubes with long ribbon for pulling.

I then used a sharp pencil to make two holes in the top of the rolls to make a handle to hang the Pinata's.

The great thing about these is they cost less than £5 for all of them finished and when they are hanging they will add decoration to the venue.