Little Monster First Birthday Party

You guys…it’s official. We have a ONE YEAR OLD (ok technically he’s already 14 months, but it’s been busy over here!). I honestly cannot believe it! The past year has absolutely flown by.

High Chair // “One” Banner

I admittedly started thinking about and planning for his first birthday party several months in advance (I was just so excited!). Initially I had a few themes I was deciding between, but when I started seeing monster themed parties pop up on Pinterest, it was an easy decision. I loved the colorful decorations and the cute little monsters scattered throughout. Luckily Blake loved it too and then everything quickly came together!

Cake Stand

I think my favorite part is this adorable smash cake. I had grand plans and a vision of baking the cake from scratch, effortlessly piping cute fur all over and adding detailed fondant touches for the face and horns. And then…reality hit and I was reminded that my skill set definitely is not the strongest in the kitchen. I bought everything I needed, set up shop in our kitchen and did a test-run cake the weekend before the party. And. it. was. a. disaster. As in…half the cake got stuck in the pan. In both pans. And then the piping took forever and wasn’t as easy as the 10 tutorials I watched seemed to make it. The icing tip got clogged so I squeezed really hard and it shot out of the bag and I ended up with (electric blue) icing all over my countertop. So I gave up and stuck the cake in the fridge. The next morning I opened the door and the entire side of the cake had fallen off. And then I went to Publix and talked to the bakery and they said they could make the cake for under $20 with only 24 hours notice…so I threw in the towel and ordered one ASAP 🙂 Didn’t they do an amazing job? I shared some images I had found by googling “monster smash cake” and they took it from there. (Worth. Every. Penny.)

Blue Turtleneck Tunic

Ok wait I take it back…my favorite thing is tied between the smash cake and this monthly photo banner! I found these cute little monthly monsters on Etsy – they come as a PDF so I printed them and cut them out before attaching them to scrapbook paper I found at JoAnns. I used the paper behind the photographs as well and hung them with mini clothespins. It’s so fun to see his growth progression all lined up – it’s hard to remember him being so tiny!!

One of the first things I did was start to look for invitations. I’ve had a lot of luck with invites from Zazzle (they run crazy sales all the time and you really can’t beat the price) and I ended up picking an invite that had a spot for a picture. I LOVED how they turned out and ended up ordering some monster Thank You postcards as well which made it so easy to write a quick note thanking all of our generous friends and family who showered Luke with gifts during the celebration.

My sister-in-law made this adorable onesie for Luke to wear. It was so perfect and luckily all of the blue icing came out so he got to wear it again on his actual birthday 🙂 You can see more of her designs and shop her products here.

I found these solo cups at Publix and they were the EXACT four colors I had chosen for the decorations…what are the odds??

The plates, napkins, cutlery, and streamers came from Party City and the pom pom decor, party hats, and serving bowls are from The Dollar Tree.

For the food, I just went with easy to grab snack food rather than sticking with the theme. We had Chik-Fil-A nuggets, pasta salad, pigs in a blanket, veggies + dip, fruit salad, and chips/salsa/guacamole. And of course, monster cupcakes! While I had, again, originally intended to make them myself, Publix whipped these up too. I had already bought the little eyes, so I just told them to leave the eyes off and I put my own on (so…can I claim these as semi-homemade then??). I used extra eyes for the little tent cards to pull everything together. The Dollar Tree had tons of big bowls and platters in bright colors, so I grabbed some of the those and used a few bowls from our mixing bowl set as well.