my baum shelter

I will admit it – I went all out for babyBaum’s first birthday party. I was a crafting machine and, as is usually the case when I attempt anything creative, some of the crafts far surpassed my expectations and some were just plain failures. But, I had a lot of fun planning and creating and then celebrating amidst my crafts. Fred and I had made it ONE YEAR.

So, first the scene. I decided on a circus theme and from there decided on red and turquoise as my main colors. Because, you know, color scheme matters. For the decorations, I decided on making tissue paper chandeliers, a paper flag bunting banner, and labels for the popcorn, water bottles and cotton candy with a fun circus font.

 The tissue paper flowers were ridiculously easy to make. Really – it’s become one of my new favorite crafts because it takes all of 25¢ and 20 minutes to make one of these really pretty chandeliers that look like they took way more than a quarter and 20 minutes to make. I followed these directions from the Queen of Crafts herself, Ms. Martha Stewart. I also used her directions to make the flag bunting, which would’ve turned out a little better if I had paid any attention to measurements. As it turned out, the banner took up one whole length of my living room wall.

For the labels, I downloaded a free circus font from dafont.com. I used round Avery labels for the popcorn and cotton candy and just plain paper and double sided tape for the water bottles. This was so very easy to do – the only time consuming part was figuring out dimensions but I have a Word template now; so, if anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll send it to you. I used the standard size 16.9 oz water bottles (these were from Costco). For the popcorn buckets, I used these from Wilton.

For the food, we had standard party fare ~ sandwiches, veggie tray, fruit and cheese tray, spinach dip. And, then we had our circus birthday party fare – popcorn, cotton candy, cupcakes, cake balls, cake pops, and, of course, animal crackers.

Most of the work for this party went into the baking. My friend Barbara first introduced me to the world of cake balls. Delicious bite-sized balls of cake dipped in chocolate. I love them very much. Then, the Pioneer Woman introduced me to Bakerella and my eyes were opened up to a whole new world of baking possibilities that included not only cake balls, but cake pops. A bite-sized ball of cake on a lollipop stick? Count me in!  So, with that inspiration, I decided to embark and make some cake balls and cake pops and even make some cake pops in the shape of circus tents. The circus tent ones did not turn out so well – you can see them there in the picture. But, they all tasted great, which in the end, is all that matters when it comes to dessert, right? I also made some cupcakes and an individual cake for the birthday boy.

We had too many people to fit in our tiny kitchen, so we laid down a sheet, dressed babyBaum in his pj’s, and let him go to town. It took him awhile to realize what was before him, but once he did, he was more than happy to dig in.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the Birthday Bash – circus games, clown noses, circus tattoos, and our photo booth. I’ll post those later. There’s only so many photos I can upload while babyBaum naps!