Hensley's Shabby Chic 1st Birthday!

I wouldn't say that I LOVE planning birthday parties, but I am pretty picky when it comes to how they are decorated ;) I don't like the traditional licensed character themes, but would rather come up with something unique. Even now that Tae is old enough to request her favorite character parties, I still try to make it unique by handmaking the decorations and not buying into the licensed stuff. When it came time to plan Hensley's birthday, I wanted something vintage and lovely. I searched on Pinterest and it seemed the "shabby chic" theme stood out to me the most. It fit Hensley. There weren't a whole of lot of ideas for birthday's, but there were a lot for weddings. I enlisted my sister's help since she owns a fancy cutting machine and we hit the road running. I decided to use the colors turquoise, pink, and gold. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought everything that fit the theme.

 My mom made these beautiful cakes...didn't they turn out lovely?! I again searched Pinterest for cake ideas and we merged a few ideas together and this is what we came up with. I made the pennant cake topper out of leftover paper from the decorations. The cake was chocolate with strawberry filling and buttercream icing. Not only did it look pretty, but it tasted great too!

 These photos represent every month since Hensley was born. I printed out the photos and my sister cut the paper. I attached them to twine by clothespins. This was a super easy project and I think it turned out so great!

These are the favors the kiddos got. They included bubbles, chalk, and rock candy. My sister cut these sweet tags and I attached them with clothespins. I found the favor boxes in the dollar bins at Target!

I had these cookies made by a local baker, Sooner Sugar. Christy worked hard to get exactly what I wanted. There were a few last minute changes, but she did her best to make things work!

 I got this lace burlap and the craft store and hot glued it around mason jars for the drinks. I also thought these stripped straws matched the theme.

 We had a lot of great snacks! We had chips with guacamole and salsa, fruit, crackers and "ants on a log".

 For drinks I mixed organic lemonade with sparkling berry water and we also had tea. The punch was so good and looked pretty in my mom's dispenser!

 I wanted to have favors for the adults and the older kids so I made a homemade kettle corn. I used this recipe.

It was hard to get this banner into a picture, but it says "hensley is 1". I bought the pre-made pennant banner at the craft store and just attached cut out craft paper and cut out letters with glue dots. I think it turned out beautiful!

Of course I couldn't forget to add pictures of Hensley digging into her cake. We practiced singing "happy birthday" and blowing out candles. She got to the point where she would blow whenever we sang the song. Well, the time came to do her cake and she blew out her own candle! She thoroughly enjoyed getting messy with her cake. I don't think she ate too much of it, but she did get messy!