First Bithday Party Wonderland Style Part 1

     If we are truly honest with ourselves, a baby's first birthday party is really for the parents. And if we are really, really honest, it is for the mom. I don't have a problem with that. Why not allow mom to celebrate the hard labor and sleepless nights of the first year?
     Naturally, my daughter didn't have a preference on the theme of her first birthday. So I took full advantage of her apathy and designed an Alice in Wonderland party for us.
     Her birthday is in March and the weather can be pretty sketchy here in Fresno at this time so we rented a gorgeous clear top tent. I'm so glad I played it safe! The party day was sandwiched between days of showers! Since the tent was set up the morning before, the lawn was kept pretty dry preventing a muddy mess during the party.  I love that the clear top let all the light in and you could see fluffy white clouds in our sparkling blue sky.
     I scoured Pinterest for inexpensive decorating ideas. We all know tissue paper is crazy cheap at the dollar store, so tissue paper flowers was a no brainer. You can easily find tutorials on Pinterest for different kinds of flowers. I managed to get about 5 flowers in my color theme from each bundle of paper. They might be easy to make, but it is time consuming. One of the best parts is I pre-folded them then placed them in a bag until the day of the party. I didn't unfold the petals until just before the party. With the help of family we were able to fluff up the petals and hang them up in clusters of three inside the tent. How pretty are they against the sky?
      Another dollar store decorating idea was the playing card garland. It's really simple and stuck to our theme. But why have just one style garland when you can have two? Bless my hubby as he blew up tons of  balloons and strung them up as well. Balloons lend such a sweet, festive look and can really support the color theme you have chosen.
     Stay tuned... my next post will be about a couple craft projects I did for this party as well. In the meantime, here are some gorgeous HDR photographs my husband did of the tent along with detail shots we both took.
    I hope you are inspired!
 Many thanks to ExpoPartyRentals  They have beautiful products and outstanding customer service!
     

Photography by Ambient Art Photography

ambientartphoto.com