Vintage Circus 1st Birthday Party

Can you believe my baby girl is 1 year old already?




These parties get harder and harder with 2 kids and working full time, but we pulled it off!  I could have done so much more, but I just had to draw the line somewhere for my own sanity.  The decorations came out super cute, the food was good, and everyone had a great time!

DIY party hats with a special one for the birthday girl

Let's just go right to her wearing it because it's too darn cute...she was so upset that she had to wait for cake!

The front hallway with her 12 month calendar photos, party blowers, and circus animal crackers as the balloon weights

Close-up of the party blowers


Front door sign

Back door leading to the backyard...
A couple hours before the party started, we ended up moving a lot of things outside because the weather was beautiful!


Happy Birthday banner in the kitchen

Party hats for the kids

Banner of monthly photos with her baby doll

Cards for the guests to write memories and advice for Caylee.  Everyone wrote the cutest messages for her! (I did this for Connor too, and I love that we can save them for him to look at when he gets older)


The snacks were also an important part of the vintage circus theme.  Everyone pigged out on circus peanuts, gummy bears, candy buttons, popcorn...

Cotton candy, Cracker Jack, animal crackers, etc...

We also had soft pretzels with cheese dip, hot dogs & turkey dogs, and some everyday food too.  Most of it got eaten before I got to take photos!

Caylee absolutely loved her first taste of cake and ended up with half in her tummy & half in her hair!

Connor was a great big brother and helped her blow out her birthday candle!

 It's so hard to believe it's been a year since she was born.  She's gone from a little newborn to a big girl in such a short time! But thank goodness this party is over now...I'm ready to enjoy the summer!

DIY Children's Art Drawing on a Pillow

Connor is turning into quite the little artist lately (swoon!) and I guess my love of art is rubbing off on him.  He started drawing these little faces

Connor is turning into quite the little artist lately (swoon!) and I guess my love of art is rubbing off on him.  He started drawing these little faces at daycare during art class and I'm obsessed with them.  I thought it might be fun to turn one of them into a little pillow for him.  We play "art class" at home, so I took a piece of fabric and ironed some pellon on the back of it to stiffen it up a little.  He used a fabric marker to draw the face on the fabric.

My little lefty hard at work!

I put fleece on the back side to make it a little softer for his bed and sewed the pillow closed.  He absolutely loves it!  He sleeps with it every night!  Best little project ever :)

DIY Kids Despicable Me Minion Valentine's Day Crayon Wrap Gifts

Connor is currently obsessed with Despicable Me 2 and watches it at least a few times a week.  He calls it something like "Nin-yinks" instead of Minions, but it's cute!  For Valentine's Day, his daycare doesn't allow food to be brought in, so I thought it might be fun to do crayon Valentine's with Minions since they're his current favorite thing.

There's a lot of Minion printables floating around online right now, but none of them were quite right for what I needed.  I ended up resizing them to make them fit the crayon boxes I used, and then I added a little red note on the back.


I had to hide them from Connor until Valentine's Day so he doesn't destroy them, but I can't wait to see his face when he sees them!

DIY Baby Onesie Dress

One of the best parts about having a baby girl is all the stuff you can make her to wear.  However, I pretty much avoid making her clothes because she grows out of them so fast that it's not even worth the effort.  These dresses were pretty easy, so I did do a few of them (back when I still had time) during maternity leave.  She never even got a chance to wear them, but I did take photos of her in them before they got too small! 

I pretty much followed this tutorial by Prudent Baby with a few tweaks of my own to create this little dress for her.

It's really nice to have the onesie attached and then you can always add leggings or tights over it too.

Pretty girl!

DIY Sew Toddler Stuffed Christmas Tree and Ornaments

This was definitely a labor of love project!  2 years later, I finally have something I can show off.  I believe I started this right after Connor's first Christmas when I had the great idea that he could decorate his own child-proof tree the next year.

I started out with some fleece and made my famous stuffed tree, but a giant version that was much bigger than the normal 10-12" one.

The star was the hardest part.  I had to find a way to get it to stay on and be child-friendly.  Using a party hat and a star cut out as my inspiration, I created a felt version that fit on the tree.

It took a few attempts to get it to work, but I figured it out eventually.


I used a blanket stitch around the outside edge of the star.




The ornaments were the hard part, but I wanted to go all out with these.  I did some sketches of the ideas I had, so I would be able to plan the designs.


Seriously, these must have taken months to finish, but the end result was adorable.  Each one has little buttons and hand-stitching on it.

To get the ornaments to stay on the tree, I added big buttons to each tree branch.

At some point, I finally finished this thing and put it in the basement with the other holiday things.  I got busy and forgot about it until the other day when I found it!  Connor is the perfect age for it now and I'm so happy I have it for him!

He loved decorating it!