Charlotte's 1st Birthday

My baby Charlotte had her 1st birthday on Saturday, I can't believe a year has come and gone since the day she was born! I had a hard time deciding how to celebrate her 'big day' and whether or not I should choose a theme for the party. She's not particularly into anything but my drawers and cupboards at this stage of life... so instead of a themed party I decided to just choose a sweet & cheery color pallet to match her cute little personality and get us excited for spring!

You may think this is a little over the top, but whenever I have an event that requires a little more decorating and planning then your average dinner party, I like to actually draw out my plans and make lists of exactly what I need to purchase.

Normally, I am running around from store to store trying to put together and find all of my necessary party supplies but this time I was able to purchase just about everything I needed through Shindigz.com (A wonderful online party supply store that happens to have award winning costumer service.) Their online shop was super easy to navigate and I loved being able to get exactly what I needed without having to take my 2 little ones out on long shopping trip.

The party consisted of a delicious dinner with our closest family members, presents, cake & ice cream, and an awesome home video documenting the highlights of Charlotte's 1st year of life (thanks to my husband :). I used a soft color pallet for the decor (whites + creams with small touches of pink + gold). And to keep things simple yet elegant I added some fresh flowers (many of which came from our own garden!)

When I started putting this post together I realized I totally forgot to make Charlotte a party hat! Don't know how it slipped my mind...I did make her headband though...so I'm counting that as the party hat! 

I decided to make a smaller version of the large cake for Charlotte's personal cake. I loved how cute the cakes turned out, and the frosting technique was so quick and simple! If you are wondering how I did it you should check out THIS cupcake tutorial I listed on you tube. I used exactly the same technique for the top of the cake but ran the icing in lines from bottom to top for the sides (I'm making a video for this tutorial as well just haven't got around to posting it yet!)