Party Planning Binder and First Birthday Parties

My Sweet baby nephew turned 1 on January 9th, my sister organized a Dr. Seuss themed party that was simply adorable. My sister is super creative and I loved all the stuff she made for the party.  Here's a peek....

I also planned a small party for him in our hometown. Since there is so much I have floating in my head, I put together a party planner to help me stay organized. I got a pretty binder from Target and got to work.

 I put in some planning sheets to help keep all my to-do lists, checklists, and guest list together.

 I also separated the binder into sections, I'm planning to put in ideas I find  in magazines and pinterest

 and slip them into each section. I put in baby shower and bridal shower game ideas I found and put them in the shower section. The categories I have are Showers, children's parties, holidays, weddings/ anniversaries, and adult parties, which is not what you think, lol! ( that section includes reunions, bachelorette parties, birthday parties, etc

I also added a birthday chart at the end, so I could keep track of all the birthdays of all our family and friends. Sorry didn't take picture of it. Here are some pics of the party we planned for him- It's a Julius Paul Frank monkey theme.

How do you plan your events? Would love to get more ideas...

XOXO, Thanks!!
Michelle

Xavier's First Birthday!!!

TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY---- WOWZA!!!!! My posts were long over due!! Chose to put up this post because today is my friend Cori's baby boy's 1st birthday!!!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.. You are a wonderful blessing to your family and to us!! May God bless you...

Well this weekend Mr. Xavier had a birthday party... A monkey theme party for mommy's little monkey!!

My friend asked if I could make him a birthday hat. She bought some felt and other supplies and threw some ideas at me of what she wanted. I worked with felt before, during Christmas when I made personalized stockings, but this was my first try at making a hat. We started with a birthday hat, Cori got at the dollar store.. for... yes- a buck!! Don't you just love dollar stores?? Well anyway, when we put the felt on the hat, you could see the design show through the felt, so we put a plain white sheet of paper around it. It worked pretty good as a coverage and made it more sturdy. We then put the felt around it using our trusty friend- the glue gun!! 

After putting on the felt we decorated it with felt letters to spell his name and lime green feathered  boa to trim and top the hat. To make the monkey, I went on google and googled " monkey clipart". We picked the cutest one and that looked like the monkey she was using throughout her party decor. I copied and pasted it to a word document and sized it to the size we needed. I first traced the monkey head on the brown felt and then cut it apart and traced the face and ears on the tan felt. I put it together,, adding the eyes and using a piece of brown felt for the mouth . Wish I had pics of the process.... But here it is my very first birthday hat for Xavier's very first birthday...

Here are some other pics of Xavier's party..

Here are the centerpieces...Cori bought almost all the stuff at the dollar store and the balloons and dowels

 ( or whatever they are called to hold the balloons) at a party supply store. The mini palm trees were in the party section for a luau- themed party and the monkey plates were in the grocery section where they had the plates, cups, napkins, etc... This was all Cori's idea... The palm tree had a hole at the top so we slipped in the dowel, using a hot glue to secure it. We then sandwiched the dowel between two monkey plates. The balloons were added at the party.

The cake was ordered at a bakery, but mommy, aunt, and grandma lovingly made each cupcake. You can find instructions here.

Here's a few more shots of the b-day boy!!

Happy Birthday, little monkey!!

Michelle