Greyson is 1: Party Edition

Greyson's big 1st birthday bash was a wonderful day! I don't think it could have been better! We had so many great friends and family who came from near and far to celebrate our little man(mostly far since we live in Denton---aka Oklahoma to our Dallas friends :).

Nana and Gramps stayed at our house that weekend to help get everything ready for the party, and Blake and Katherine came all the way from Colorado to party! I browbeat asked them to come before they moved, and we were so excited that they came to stay with us!

Here are a few pictures from the party! (I don't have the blogger skills to make a slideshow...)








GG was a hit with the little kids at the party! Minnie also appreciated that GG "saved" her from all the love!
My big birthday boy! He was a huge fan of the fun straws.

Somehow, we managed to forget to take a picture of the 3 of us! I was so upset, but live and learn!

The Summers (minus Nathan)


Presley and her Mommy Jenn

Joey and a very pregnant Kara.

Greyson's girlfriend Claire and her Mommy Anna.

Aunt Morgen and Uncle Carl assembling the BBQ grill!

A drum from Nana and Gramps...thanks guys...haha!

When it was time to eat cake, Grey was a bit apprehensive. We sang Happy Birthday, and blew out the candle, and waiting with anticipation to see if he would dive in. Well, he grabbed at it once, and then just looked at his hand like "What the heck is this?" Turns out he isn't a huge fan of sweets quite yet. Maybe next year!

Greyson is 1: Party Crafts!

Greyson had a wonderful 1st birthday party! So many of our great friends and family came to celebrate with our little man, and it couldn't have been better!! I will post about the party next, but before that happens let's talk crafts!

We have been planning for weeks, and I think it turned out pretty well! My Mom (Nana) thought I was nuts, and in the late hours of Friday night before the party on Saturday, she vetoed some of my plans that had yet to be completed. Thanks Mom for all of your help especially in the area of maintaining my sanity! I tend to go a little overboard.....haha! But, when it comes to Greyson, is there really such a thing as too much?! I didn't think so either!

Where do I begin?! Brace yourselves for a LONG blog o' craft details :) (Bear with me, I am trying to document this so that we can look back at it one day, OR just in case I need to guilt Greyson into behaving by showing him how much we love him :)

First of all, as I mentioned in an earlier post about the invitations, we decided to have a milk and cookies themed party using the colors of Grey's nursery (red & aqua). I had the best time crafting all kinds of goodies! It was really fun for me, and I got to up-the-ante when Morgen (my crafting accomplice) let me borrow her Silhouette! Those things are amazing! I made a few big hanging banners, and the high chair banner using it. Here are a few pictures of the decorations made with the Silhouette.




I got a ton of ideas from a few of the blogs that I keep up with, and I was able to create party circles, cupcake picks, and all kinds of labels, and t-shirt designs using Picnik and Publisher. It's so much easier than you would think it is. I'm glad I didn't buy them on etsy because I actually learned a thing or two! I started by using this tutorial from The Mother Huddle that gives you the basics on Picnik. Everything else just sort of fell into place from there.

Party Hat Photo Year-in-Review

For the cute Greyson party hat pictures, I used the party hat patterns from Sarah at Life Sweet Life Blog, and Morgen made the poms to go on top! These were so much fun, and I had a really hard time taking them down after the party because they were just too sweet! I printed a picture from each of his 12 month photos and cut around the faces. I didn't get hung up on making them all black and white or all the same size, and I'm really glad that I let them be different because it made them really funny. Instead of making a banner with them, I just hung them up all along the entrance hallway.






Cupcake Wrapper Wreath

Another big party project was the wreath I made using cupcake papers. It turned out really cute...maybe a tidbit girly, but oh well. I was going to add in some more blue to up the man-factor, but I was worried that it would be too much, so I left it. It was really easy to make, and I think I will do it again for other events. All you need is a styrofoam wreath, wide ribbon to cover the wreath, some hot glue, cupcake wrappers, and fingers of steel! (I may have burned myself a few times...oops!) The cute bunting comes from TomKat Studio. If you've never seen her printables before, please check it out! They are super cute!










Milk Bottles & Labels

Another big project was the milk portion of the party. I have been searching for milk bottles since May, and everything I found online was either overpriced or too small. So, I used Starbuck's Frappuccino bottles. Jared and I bought two cases at Sam's and he took them to work one day so that his fellow employees could have some coffee and help empty the bottles for us. I ran the bottles and lids through the dishwasher, spray painted the lids white, and peeled the labels off. Now, a word of advice, I bought Goo Gone to get the sticky part off of the bottles, but if you leave it alone, the left over glue will actually help you adhere the new labels.

Speaking of labels, I started out thinking that I was going to do squares on the front and back, but it was much cuter to use wrap around labels in my opinion. I created the labels so that they would be the same width as the Starbuck's labels so that they would cover the sticky part. Once again, I used the awesome pattern pieces from Sprik Space, and a PowerPoint slide to create them.

I was a bit perplexed as to how to make them waterproof though. First, I was going to use Sarah's advice from Life Sweet Life Blog and wrap them with packing tape, but I do not have the patience or the skills to keep it from getting all stuck together. After a couple of different attempts I went back to the drawing board. That is when I made the best discovery ever (yes, it's that good).......Krylon Preserve It spray!! Genius!!! All you do is print out whatever you want (paper, photos, cardstock, documents of any kind), and then spray the paper on one side. Let it dry for a few hours, and then cut them to fit what you need. I used cardstock for the labels because I ran out of full sheet sticker paper, but you could just as easily use that, and skip the double sided tape! (I did the exact same thing for the water bottle labels as well, and not a single label bled or fell apart.)




Love the straws! Visit Hey YOYO on Etsy.

Cookies

So, of course I LOVE to bake, so Friday before the party I baked all kinds of sweet treats with the help of my Mom and Katherine (Blake's girlfriend, and official sugar cookie outliner!). We made chocolate chip cookies, dark chocolate oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, cake balls, cupcakes, and sugar cookies. It all turned out deliciously!




For the party favors, I bought treat bags at Hobby Lobby (where I spent a significant amount of time leading up to the party...), and put cute little labels on them of Greyson's face and the Cookie Monster, and enclosed a packaged sugar cookie inside. This way, the guests could either take just the one cookie, or hopefully take some of the favorites from the party home with them.






All in all I had so much fun crafting/creating all of the things for Grey's big day! If anyone wants the files for the printables, I am happy to send them your way! Lord knows I spent enough time on them to warrant more than one use! Next up, party post!