Farm Animal 1st Birthday Party

Howdy, partners! Hang on to yer hats, because I have a full post today! For our son's first birthday, we recently celebrated with a farm animal themed party. I went a little crazy with the crafting (it was just so fun!) so I'd like to walk you through our home to show off the details that made the day so special. 

I was on a budget, so I tried to use things we already had on hand. It was fun going through the house and gathering together all of the items with a rustic or country flair to use in decorating. For the crafts, I tried to use materials I already had as well, or knew would get used again after the party.

Starting in the living room, this is the mantel display. On the left are a framed picture and a photo cube with pictures of our son. On the right is a chalkboard frame I made a over the holidays (I actually made quite a few, as you'll see) that I drew a large number 1 on. The small candle next to the frame is in a mini mason jar. The focal piece is a large frame backed with chicken wire, which I clipped 12 photos of our son to. Each month after he was born we took a photo of him in the same chair so that you could see the progression of his growth over his first year. Hence the 12 photos. :)

Here you can see the chicken wire better, and our happy boy on his first birthday!

Hung from the mantel is a burlap banner that I made and stenciled the word "howdy" on. The burlap and paint I already had, and the stencils were purchased at Michael's with a coupon.

I also decorated with toys and books that went along with the farm theme. I sorted through our son's stuffed animals and collected all of the farm animals (with some liberties) for a "petting farm".

All of his farm board books!

Our dining table was covered in our usual table cloth, but dressed up with a red bandana, some white mums in a galvanized flower bucket, and more candles in mini mason jars.

I turned our rolling kitchen island into the drink station, AKA the Watering Hole! There was both water and raspberry lemonade.

I used pint sized mason jars for drinking glasses, topped with cute little daisy lids. So fun! The blue and white stripe straws I already had on hand from another party.

These French doors are off our dining room. More stenciled banners!

 

I'll be sharing more details on how I made these banners next week. Stay tuned!

Now on to the food! I realized as I was going through my photos of the party that I apparently only took pictures of the desserts. Oops! This is the smash cake I made for the birthday boy. It is a double layer 6" chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. I didn't trust my cake decorating skills, so I decided not to try and attempt a fancy barn cake or cow print fondant, as cool as those would have been. Instead, since our boy loves his pinwheel mobile so much, I decided to top his cake with paper pinwheels.

 

The largest pinwheel in the center also had a number 1 on it. Each pinwheel was hot glued to a bamboo skewer and cut to a different height, with the main pinwheel being the tallest.

 

These cupcakes may have been my favorite part of the party. I made farm animal cupcake toppers! There were horses, pigs, cows, roosters, chickens and ducks.

I used Papertrey Ink's On the Farm dies to die cut farm animals out of black card stock. I then sandwiched a toothpick between two die cuts to create the toppers. Easy and cute! The red gingham liners were a score from the Michael's $1 bin. I initially baked the cupcakes in white liners, and then set them in the red liners after they had cooled. That way the red gingham pattern remained vibrant rather than getting dulled by grease, which usually seems to happen when I use pretty liners to bake with. I used a 1M star tip to frost the cupcakes and did a happy dance that they turned out so well. Thank you Wilton for this step by step tutorial!

And finally, here are the napkins. These are actually leftover from our wedding reception! They are paper, but so thick they are almost like cloth. They measure approximately 16" square, so I folded them into quarters and rolled them like I would have if they were real linen. I used jute twine as napkin rings and set them in a wire basket.

Whew! That was a lot and if you are still with me thank you so much for sticking to the end! I hope something I shared inspired you. It was a very special day for our family, thank you for letting me share some of it with you!

Happy Birthday, Titus!