Friday, March 22, 2013

Sesame Street Party – First Birthday Poster

Continuing in my series of posts about Nathan’s Sesame Street 1st Birthday Party, today I’m sharing the First Birthday Poster I made.

First Birthday Poster

I loved the posters for sale on Etsy by MoulageCollection but at $52 they were way out of my price range. Instead I spent $1 on a piece of bristol board, used the expensive chalk version as inspiration and made my own with markers.

Birthday Bristol Board_close2

I started in the centre with “Nathan is ONE!” and then wrote around the outside about his favourites, his activities and his measurements. Basically I aimed to capture the essence of Nathan at 12 months old ;)

Birthday Bristol Board_close1

The last step was to dress it up by adding some doodling and then some Sesame Street chipboard characters to tie the poster to the theme. I hung it up in the living room and it was neat to see people stop and read it throughout the party. I hope I can remember that I want to make one of these every year!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Sesame Street Party – Balloon Birthday Wreath

If you’re a regular reader than you probably know that I’ve got a thing for wreaths. I’ve got one for pretty much every season and holiday. I hang them outside, inside, my Summer Paper Wreath hangs in my kitchen all year round. So when I started seeing variations of this balloon wreath all over Pinterest I knew I needed to make one for Nathan’s party.

Balloon Birthday Wreath 

It was so easy to make but had big impact and I got a lot of compliments. All you need for the basic concept is a Styrofoam wreath form, straight pins and balloons in your colour scheme. I went with 5 different colours and used just under 50 balloons in total. How many you need will depend on the size of your wreath form. Buy more than you think you’ll need because the end result is a lot better when the wreath is fuller.

All you need to do is start pinning the balloons to the wreath form with the straight pins. I tried to space out the colours evenly but I didn’t worry about a pattern as everything ends up overlapping. If you don’t like a section it’s easy to unpin and try again so don’t think too hard about it! Once I had all my balloons in place I pinned a loop of ribbon on to the back for hanging.

Balloon Birthday Wreath_close 

It was cute with just balloons but I decided it needed something else so I painted a wooden N that I had in my stash and attached the Sesame Street lamppost. I hot glued ribbon to the back and then pinned it to the back of the wreath.

All told this wreath took me less than an hour to make and cost less than $10. The bright primary colours fit the Sesame Street theme perfectly but they’re also just cheerful birthday colours so I’ll be able to use the wreath again next year just by removing the lamppost and replacing it with something to fit the next theme.

Still lots more Sesame Street Party posts to come!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sesame Street Party – Baby Food Jar Favours

When I decided to make favours for Nathan’s 1st birthday I knew I needed to do something edible. I hate bringing home favours that just collect dust because you feel too guilty to throw them out. I even made edible favours for our wedding. I had acquired a bunch of baby food jars last fall for a project I never got around to making and decided favours would be a perfect use for them.

Baby Food Jar Favours

To make the labels I had Nathan scribble all over white paper and then I cut it into strips to wrap around each jar. I wrote “Thanks for coming! Love Nathan” on each one before I glued them on. For toppers I used cupcake liners. The regular sized ones fit perfectly over a baby food jar lid but I had to cut the top halves off so they didn’t cover the writing on the labels. I attached them to the lids with a glue stick.

To fill the jars – the actual favour part – I used mini M&Ms and sour jelly beans. The bright colours matched the party theme perfectly.

Baby Food Jar Favour

The favours were a hit and I’m sure the candy was enjoyed not long after it left the house. Hopefully all the jars made it to the recycling bin ;)

More Sesame Street Party posts to come so be sure to check back!

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Sesame Street Party – Invitations (with Template!)

Earlier this week I posted about my son’s Sesame Street 1st Birthday Party with the promise that I’d be blogging about all the projects I made for it. I figured first things first – we have to start with the invitations.

Sesame Street Invite

I started with the image of the gang from Sesame Street. I don’t have a proper credit for it as it seems to be floating around on a lot of blogs and parenting sites but I found it on Google Images. I’m sure it probably originated with Sesame Street. I used a photo editing program to add the multi-coloured circles and text and done! I somehow managed to forget a picture of the finished product but I printed them 4 to a page and then backed each with colourful card stock. It was a pretty simple invite but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something that people were probably just going to throw out not long after receiving it. And I think they turned out pretty cute :)

If you like them too maybe you’d like to make your own! Click on the image below to get a copy of the template – all you need to do is add your text and print them out!

Sesame Street Invite Template

Lots more Sesame Street Birthday posts coming up so be sure to check back!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Sesame Street 1st Birthday Party!

Hello! Yes, I’m still here and I’m sorry my posting has been so sporadic lately. Being back to work and figuring out our new family schedule has been tough and the blog has had to take a backseat despite the fact that I’ve got lots of great stuff to share with you. Well I’m hoping to correct that now but introducing a series of posts about my son’s first birthday party. We went with a Sesame Street theme – he loves the characters and I loved working in all the bright primary colours. Over the next week or two (I’m trying not to over commit myself here!) I’ll be posting about everything you see here – and maybe a few more things I couldn’t fit in the collage!

SesameStreetBirthday 

I’ll come back here after each post to add a link so it’ll be easy to find everything. Here’s a partial list of the projects I’ll be writing about:

  • Sesame Street Invite
  • Baby Food Jar Favours
  • 12 Month Summary Bristol Board
  • Heart Garland
  • Sesame Street Pennant Garland
  • Mason Jar Decor
  • “Framed” Guest Photos
  • Tissue Paper Pom Poms
  • Balloon Wreath
  • Photo Garland
  • Table Decor

Hope you’ll come back to see all of the posts!