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Your Are My Sunshine 1yr - Birthday Wishes

September 2007

Andrea in Washington, MI United States

Honorable Mention

For my daughters 1st birthday I went with a Sunshine theme because I always sing You are My Sunshine" to her. She was also born in July a very sunny month! 

First I made beautiful handmade invitations. I used scrapbooking/cardstock papers. I cut the size of the bottom piece of the invite into a rectangle (size can vary depending on the envelopes you choose). The bottom was a pretty yellow. Then I cut a smaller rectangle out of a pastel yellow paper with  yellow words printed all over it (First birthday One is Sweet etc. This paper was purchased at a scrapbooking store). Then I cut out yellow velum and made it slightly smaller than the second rectangle. I printed the actual invite on the velum and put all three layers together with small yellow brads (fasteners) in the corners. The invitation read "Our Little Sunshine is Turning one". It continued with the rest of the information. I did the font in a light orange/yellow. Next to the smallest rectangle I placed a small white birthday candle and tied it through the invite with yellow ribbon. Up in the right corner I placed a two tone sun. I glittered them with yellow glitter glue on the outside perimeter of the sun and rays and glued it on. I got many compliments on the invites! I have to say they were very pretty!    

I also made a poster board on yellow of course and placed her monthly pictures (I get them taken monthly for the first year) from birth to 1 year on the board. I decorated around the pictures with some of the same suns that I used on the inivtes and birthday stickers. I placed it near the gift table so all could see how much she had grown.  On the gift table I also had made a book for people to write their Birthday Wishes for the birthday girl. I also made this out of the same papers I used on the invitations with a few stickers placed strategically. There was also TRIVIA placed on the gift table for the adults to do. I am known for my trivia and I make it up for every party to get the adults involved. They get very competive and have a lot of fun with it. This trivia was all based on FIRSTS. Ex. When was Jillienne's first steps? When did she get her first tooth? Etc. Then at the bottom was generic questions such as What was the first soda pop made in Detroit? Who was the first to invent bubble gum? Etc. The top two winners of the trivia received a sunshine plate bowl and sunflower seeds in a tin container wrapped in yellow cellophane as a gift.     

It was held outside on our lower deck. Of course all the decorations were yellow. The table cloths were in two shades of yellow as were the cups plates napkins utensils and streamers and a 3D paper sun. There were different shades of yellow balloons and one large sunshine balloon. In the middle of the tables were glass vases with huge fresh and very large sunflowers. I also used clean baby food jars with yellow ribbon glued around the rim and filled them with lemon drops and butterscotch candies. For each child at the childrens table was a doublesided placecard with their name made on the computer with very fun colorful fonts and glued to a toothpick and placed in a gumdrop to secure it. I used yellow beach pails (new of course) and filled them with chips and snacks. I tried to make most of the snacks and food yellow.  We had homemade creamcheese/lemon bars yellow cookies chips potato sticks etc. The main course was grilled italian sausage with yellow grilled peppers cheezy potatoes lemonade a homemade tortilla salad and corn on the cob. We grilled hotdogs for the kids.    

For the dessert I made an adorable sunshine cake. I used yellow cake mix and baked it in a glass bowl so it was domed shape. I then made homemade lemon buttercream frosting and colored it a pretty shade of yellow. I used 1/2 junior mints to look like sunglasses and used orange/black gel frosting for the smile and the trim on the sunglasses. Around the sun I took sugar cones and rolled them in the frosting and then rolled them in a mixture of yellow and orange edible sugar crystals and placed them around the sun for the rays. It was sooo cute!  I then made homemade yellow cupcakes with lemon pudding filling yellow frosting and sprinkles for the children.    

In each cupcake I made cupcake pics. On the computer I took two pictures of my daughter and shrunk them quite small. I typed on the bottom corner of the first picture (using Publisher) ONE HOUR (of course the picture was of her at one hour old) then below that I placed the other picture and wrote ONE DAY using a picture of her at one day. I glued it onto a toothpick. On the other side of the toothpick was a picture of her at one year and I wrote ONE YEAR. They also turned out very cute. The birthday girl had her store bought individual cake decorated in all pastel yellow flowers.      We have outside speakers and had You are My Sunshine playing (I always play theme music). I then placed throughout the backyard many different play stations. I decided not to do organized games this time because of the ages of the children. We had tents and tunnels to climb through a ball pit giant Legos (each one is 2 feet by 1') a baby blanket under a tree for shade with strictly baby toys a baby pool filled with very warm water a big kid pool on the other side of the yard the jungle gym slides balls soft frisbees etc. We also live on a pond so the invitation had them bring fishing poles to fish.  At the end of the night it looked like an explosion of toys. Someone actually walked by and asked if I had a daycare center up and running :) The kids had plenty to do.     

At the end of the night we had a huge fireworks display over our pond. My daughter's birthday is July 7th so we thought we would make her 1st birthday go out with a bang! When everyone left the children got sunshine gift bags (Oriental Trading) with all sunshine or yellow toys and snacks depending on the child interests and their age. (yellow gum yellow goggles yellow bouncy balls yellow bibs yellow baby spoons yellow glow in the dark necklaces yellow cars yellow sunshine craft necklaces from Oriental Trading etc.)    As a gift to the adults I made my own candybar wrappers. I took the wrappers off of Hershey bars and made a stencil on Publisher for the correct size. I then wrote THANK YOU FOR BRIGHTENING MY SPECIAL DAY. I then used a  sunburst behind the words and soft yellow oranges and some pink to fill in the background. On the backside were the words With Special Thanks and Love from Jillienne and her family  along with the date and a heart.   

The party did not cost a lot since I made most of the items myself. I did have to start a month or so in advance to create all the items. The kids gifts were from Target Dollar stores and Oriental trading. The most expensive part was the food and fireworks. Of course eveyone in my family wore yellow of some sort. Even some of the gifts she received were even kept with the theme. She got beach attire a sun book a sunshine t-shirt and a sterling silver sun necklace. The gifts were very clever. Everyone had a fun time and it was a beautiful SUNNY day! "