If you go down to the woods today... Happy 1st Birthday Mason!

Well, it is all over. Months of preparation involving a multitude of cutting and hot gluing, burnt finger tips and all, done in two short hours. BUT what I have been left with made all of it worth it. My memories from that day and the amazing pictures that were taken, I will cherish for my lifetime.

Okay so first things first. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my inspiration comes from mainly Pinterest and then I tweak details from there. The colour scheme was mainly red, with accents of blue and yellow. 

Also.. a note on being prepared some time in advance. Last month my friend took pictures of Mace for his one year photos. Since I had everything pretty much ready for the party at that time, I was able to incorporate a few of the decorations into the photos! Easy props! 

Hmmm where to start. The tables! I used red and white checkered table clothes just from the dollar store and laid these on four round tables for the adults to sit at. Since they were rectangular my birthday party helper and also amazing friend E came through with the idea to gather the sides and tie with twine. This made the tables look so cute. I like to group decor in threes, so I placed a 5x7 of Mason from his birthday photoshoot in a dollar store white frame, along side a vase of fresh cut flowers (bought two bouquets from the grocery store and divided them among the four vases) and a bee nest. OK, I need to focus on this for a second. I was in love with the bee nests. Quite some time ago, my husband (who frequents the second hand stores almost daily) came across a cute game for our eldest son). I lost it when I pulled it out and saw that it had a handful of plastic bees in it. So the bees were taken from the game for a month and they were glued on yellow chinese lanterns I found on ebay. Absolutely adorable if you ask me. I also picked up four squares of artificial grass form the dollar store and used these on the tables as well.

For the food table I was gifted an retro wicker picnic basket. I glued cardstock bear ears on every.single.brown.plate. :) What can I say, I'm obsessed with the details. I took various sized mason jars (I love mason jars, but no that is not where his name came from) and wrapped burlap and ribbon around them, and used these for toothpicks, red polka dot straws and red cutlery. I also had red napkins. We had finger foods for the party, but a couple of cute ideas that I included was a large jar of licorice and a couple small bowls of teddy graham crackers. I decorated the table with teddy bears and another photo of the birthday boy. 

I had a smaller and low table decorated with a yellow checkered table cloth for the party favours. This was a last minute idea I saw online and HAD to do this. Just a cute little pinwheel taped to a bottle of bubbles. All from the dollarstore. The pinwheels came in sets of three and the bubbles in sets of six. Lots left over, but both items that kids use and love all of the time so not a bad purchase.I also had a cute little bear sign framed by the favours. 

For the main table, I hung Mason's month by month banner above. I made the teddy bears out of card stock. Really simple, then just taped his pictures on them. I love these banners and I think most people at the party enjoy seeing how Mason changed and grew over the year. 

At the one end I had a basket filled with teddy bear cookies for guests to take home with them. They were the yummiest shortbread. Literally melt in your mouth. 

Then in the middle I had a large Teddy Bear Picnic book ordered from Indigo for guests to sign, and then to the right I had the cupcakes and Mason's cake. I wrapped random boxes in red gift wrap to give a tiered effect, and the cupcakes were placed on wood slices. Loved, loved, loved how this turned out. The cupcakes had little bees on them of course :)

For Mason's special area I made a fabric banner for the front of his highchair and then bought a piece of minky fabric and literally just taped it onto the back of his chair so he would stand out better in pictures. 

I purchased four balloon bouquets. Each one had a red, yellow and blue balloon. 

I also bought a display board from Micheals to let everyone know what makes Mason so fun and special to us :) I set this up with a little bear beside it.

I always like to have something out in the hallway to let guests know what the party is. For Max's birthdays in the past I have used a display board, a cat in the hat this way, that way sign, and dinosaur tracks. For Mason's teddy bear picnic party the perfect idea was to have headbands for the guests to put on prior to entering the room, because if you go down to the woods today you'd better go in disguise ;) I wrote this on a chalkboard, glued trim around two thrift store baskets, and had a large teddy bear, along with another framed picture of Mason. The headbands were bought off of amazon. if anyone is interest in linked let me know. I used brown felt and then two different shades of brown cardstock, and some red scrapbooking paper I had lying around for the bows. This was my favourite part of the decor hands down. 

For activities for the littles, I had pin the bowtie on the bear (scrapbooking paper and buttons), make your own honeycomb necklace (honeycomb cereal, yellow yarn, plastic needles and a cute sign) and toss the teddy in the parachute. The last activity was a HUGE hit. So much fun. 

... and that's everything! 

We had the best time. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the birthday boy was in good spirits and DEVOURED his birthday cake. Let's just say it took quite some time to get him to go to sleep that night. Can you say sugar high :/ Oh well, you only turn one once, right!?

Thanks for stopping by and consider having a teddy bear picnic birthday of your own, it is the sweetest theme, perfect for a spring baby, and there are so many cute ideas.

... and now onto the next project.. and it's a big one :) Can you say Etsy? :) stay tuned!!!

~ K