A “Some Bunny is One” theme was just perfect for Aniston’s first birthday. I’m sharing ideas to help you plan including everything you need like the invitations, fun decorations, an adorable cake, banner ideas, a cute outfit and more!
I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite birthday party ideas for Moms. I’ve thrown 6 birthday parties for my girls and their cousin Rex (Aniston’s first- third, Heidi’s first and Rex’s third). I LOVE decorating for parties and making things myself so wanted to share some of my favorites. I saved almost all of the decorations from Aniston’s first birthday party and pull them out to decorate for Easter. I think that you will already have most of the supplies needed to make these items at home.
The theme of the party was “Some Bunny is One!” I knew that I wanted to incorporate Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabit as much as possible.
I had bought a pink bunny costume more for dress up purposes months prior for a couple of dollars so I dressed Aniston up and took some pictures of her. Loved how this turned out!
I had Katie from Katiedid designs make the invitation and then I had them printed on Vistaprint for a really low price. They have great deals for printing. You just need to make sure you have enough time to wait as the shipping can be on the slow side unless you pay a fee.
I LOVED making my coffee filter cabbages! I was really proud of how these turned out and three years later they are still in really good shape.
I tried several versions of this craft and my favorite and the easiest by far was the version you can find here:
Silo Hill Farm’s Coffee Filter Cabbages
All she used was a styrofoam ball, acrylic paint, coffee filters, and some straight pins. I had all of those items in my craft room. Some of the other versions I tried used wax and pink filters and those ones just didn’t turn out as realistic as this one.
Another thing I did was make carrots using twine and some fake sprigs of green leaves. I just positioned the sprigs in the middle of some newspaper and bended the paper around them to resemble carrots. When I got the shape I wanted I wrapped them with masking tape to hold it and then wrapped them with twine. After that I just painted the string or twine orange. They were cute and I’m still decorating for Easter with them.
I wrapped green silverware in orange napkins to resemble carrots. You can see them if you look closely in the baskets below. I drug our old ladder in to decorate with and loved how cute it turned out. Can you imagine how pretty this would be at an outdoors party???
I used those cabbages, carrots, Beatrix Potter books, birdhouses and watering cans from my sunroom to decorate. I didn’t have to purchase too much for the party because I already had so many decorations at my house and we collect the Beatrix Potter stories.
Try to think of items you already have like gardening supplies, potted plants, etc.
I sell burlap wreaths and table runners so I had lots of burlap laying around to decorate with. I had spray painted several pictures from Goodwill with chalkboard spray paint for my wedding so I pulled one of those out to make this sign. The “carrots” in this picture are actually bags of cheese puffs tied with a green ribbon. I found the bags on Amazon. These weren’t the exact ones I used but I think these would work great and they are adorable!
A lady from my church, Kathy Carney made this fabulous cake. We were so pleased and she executed the vision perfectly…. even better than I had imagined!
I made fun treats to go along with the theme. I grabbed a pack of ten small potting plants at the Dollar Tree and stuck pictures of various Beatrix Potter characters on the end of some little sticks to be the food labels. I threw a little bit of grassy material on top of the pots. (I already had almost all of this on hand.)
My favorite were the donut holes! They really resembled little acorns and were so easy and cute! Here is a very simple recipe!
- Heat nutella in the microwave for about 30 seconds then stir. (Heat longer if necessary to get the consistency you want.)
- Dip the donut hole in the Nutella then dip it directly into a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.
- Lay them on wax paper or a cooking sheet. When they are completely cooled, add a pretzel stick for a stem. So easy and so yummy!
The chocolate
We also put marshmallows in a bowl to be the bunny tails, carrots in some little cups of ranch, and made a punch. I cannot for the life of me remember the recipe for that. The carrots were popular and I wish I would have added more around the edges!
We had to have some chocolate dirt cupcakes as well and I thought these turned out so cute!
I also followed a direction for Oreo balls and just added a little green food coloring to the white chocolate. I put these in green cupcake liners to resemble cabbages. The fresh berries were also popular with guests. This was just a bowl with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries and a little sugar on top! (As if guests weren’t getting enough sugar at this party!!! :))
If you’ve been taking the popular “monthly” pictures of your baby, I think a banner is the perfect place to display those. It is really fun to look at the baby’s progression through the 12 months and if you haven’t shed any tears yet, you will when you look at all 12 of these! We always did 2 pictures. We took one of her with the belly stickers on our rocking chair and another of her laying on a desk calendar with the date circled. (These were so fun and different from the typical belly pics!) I just hung them from some twine I stretched across the doorway. (I mounted the pics on some scrapbook paper and attached them with clothespins.)
When Dustin and I got married, I had covered cardboard letters with sheets of moss to spell out “Dustin and Hilary”. (I bought the letters and moss from Joann’s and attached it with hot glue.)
Anyways I just rearranged the letters and added an O to spell out Aniston on the fireplace. I added a string of lights under some white fabric also left over from the wedding. I also put little stuffed bunnies inside any watering cans I had. They looked so cute with just the ears sticking out.
I pulled a wheelbarrow in and threw some burlap on top to hold the presents. (She got spoiled!!!)
I loved this little banner I ordered from an ETSY seller made using a recycled Beatrix Potter book. Her store name is Domum Vindemia if you are looking for one.
To make the high chair banner, I picked up a 1/2 yard for 4 different fabrics. Then I cut a small snip to the width of how wide I wanted my strips to be and tore it the rest of the way down the fabric to give it a frayed look. I wrapped them around a large piece of ribbon and tied them around the chair. I added this to an old wooden high chair and loved how it turned out. (Years later I pulled this same high chair garland out and used it for Heidi’s party. I will put that post up soon and you will notice that our house looks much different. I have since painted the fireplace, switched out the picture frames, and changed the rug.
If you have baby albums to set out, this is the perfect time to do so. The older your child is, the more fun it would be for guests to flip through the baby albums.
I also provided little index cards (I had taped Beatrix Potter characters to them.) and asked guests to fill it out with a memory or a wish. You can see that I set out tea sets as decoration along with the book sets.
That’s a little “bunny bottom banner” I had bought from Hobby Lobby. You may notice the large Peter Rabbit in the photo above. He was my big splurge for the party. I found him at Pottery Barn and just had to have him. I did use a coupon but it was still more than I would normally pay. However, he is very large and looks so cute in Heidi’s nursery now that I’m so glad I went ahead and bought him.
We were so pleased with the way the party turned out! As you can see, Aniston loved her cake!
Our friend Andrew had given her the little bunny ears and my mom had made that beautiful dress and I thought both were perfect for the party!
Looking for more party ideas? Head over here to see the “Young, Wild, & Three” party I put on for Aniston’s 3rd birthday!
Aniston’s Young, Wild & Three Birthday Party
What do you think? Would you try any of these ideas for your child’s birthday party or to make some fun Easter decorations or food? Let me know in the comments!
Happy Teaching and Mommy-ing this week friends!
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