A First Birthday Party

We celebrated Chelsea's first birthday this past weekend with a party at a local restaurant (March + my house + everyone one needs to invite to a first b-day = not enough room for our guests). It was quite nice to not have to worry about set-up and clean-up! I did want to personalize the party as much as possible. I made the above birthday hat for the occassion.

I bought the kids these party favors. I had a photo uploaded to this post but it seems to have disappeared!

I made goodie bags filled with candy. I originally wanted to use circle labels but time lapsed and I didn't order them so the old standby rectangles had to do the trick!

I had this empty frame and just made the sign on the computer and used a rubber stamp and colored markers for the flowers.

We purchased the main birthday party cake but I decided to make the cake she would squish. I'm not much of a cake decorator and too much of a perfectionist so Jeff bought a small store bought cake instead and we did not use this cake. This ended up being a good plan as the pink icing got all messed up during transport to the restaurant.

I had some extra chiffon and used it to decorate her high chair.

Not the best photo, I'm looking a bit weathered by this point! But I wanted to show you a photo of the skirt Chelsea was wearing. I made it! I'm very proud of this as I am not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination. My in-laws gave me a sewing machine for Christmas and Jeff gave me a bunch of supplies. I purchased the Can Can Skirt pattern from Made. The chiffon I picked doesn't give quite enough of a color variation and there are certainly many mistakes but the ruffles hide a lot! If I attempted this skirt again I would match the base fabric to one of the chiffon colors.

Here is the birthday girl digging in! She had a great time smashing the cake though didn't really eat any of it. A few licks of frosting and she was happy.

Tomorrow is her actual birthday. Jeff and I are taking the day off from work and going to the zoo - more birthday photos to come!

For the birds...

Before...Cheap porcelain birds purchased in a lot of odds and ends at an estate sale.


After...

A coat of spray paint and new life! They now reside on my mantle and mimic the current trend of neutral colored animal figures that can be purchased for lots of $$ at some of the various decorating haunts.

Excuse the overexposed photos. I took them in a rush before leaving for work.

My Sewing Area

Really bad photo and I did not stage it at all either (note the framed money from the first sale of my old dog treat business) but here is my little evolving sewing area. I have not sewed much since 8th grad home ec but I have wanted a sewing machine for the last several years. My mother and father-in-law gave me the machine for Christmas and Jeff gave me lots of sewing goodies so there was no longer an excuse to not jump right in.

I made a skirt for Chelsea's 1st birthday (coming up on the 18th!) and will post some photos. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out though there are lots of mistakes. It contains ruffles so they aren't that noticeable. Hee hee. Now I'm getting more confident and I think I might try some summer outfits for Chelsea. I will start small and easy and see how it goes. If you know of any easy patterns for little girl outfits please do share.

I have an old abandoned chair that I rescued from my father-in-law that I will be remaking into my sewing chair and I'm going to clean this area up a bit but for now it works. It is in the basement so natural light is at a premium. The old Singer table (with the machine still inside) is my husband's. He does have an eye for the good stuff after all! (Just kidding honey).