Kenley's Party: the food & decorations

Kenley and her great grandmas at the birthday party

I've been wanting to share a few more details from Kenley's party. I should say, "the birthday party brought to you by Pinterest". I went back to my bookmarked ideas and chose my favorites, then made the ones I had time to accomplish. I think it is important to credit where the ideas come from, although I did put my own spin on them. (side note - have you heard about Link With Love? Very cool and important message about making sure artists and other creators get credited properly on the internet.)

I made three decorations for our kitchen/great room to create a festive atmosphere.

I saw this banner by JustAPharmGirl and knew that I wanted to do something similar to showcase a photo from each month of Kenley's life. Another inspiration was this simple banner via The Macs (wow! another awesome 1st birthday party! Wish I would have clicked through sooner to use her time capsule idea and other great party details!)

The light in our great room is not very good, so I took the banner and the vases outside to photograph them.

The vase idea came about when I saw these great bottles at the grocery store a few months ago. I started saving them to use for a decoration. I also had some chalkboard paint, and was inspired by these bottles via Ruthi Auda. I used a paintbrush to paint two coats inside the debossed glass design and then drew the designs with chalk when they dried. The cool thing is that I can erase and reuse these for any theme!


I *loved* this 50 photo decoration by Martha, so I recreated it with B&W photos (2"x3") in the shape of a 1. I printed photos from birth through the current day, then taped them to the wall with masking tape. It is still hanging up today, but I'm planning to take them down soon and put them together in a mini-scrapbook to save.

And now... the food! My grandma made and brought krumkake, a traditional Norwegian dessert. I made chocolate and sprinkle-dipped rice krispie balls (recpie here) and crunchy chocolate peanut butter bites (via Iowa Girl Eats).

I've seen the cake banner around the web in a few places, but I thought this one via Hello Lucky! was sweet & simple, so I made my own version for Kenley's cake. The little pinwheels were saved from her baby shower!


The cake was made using Sophistimom's recipe for all-natural Red Velvet cake. The color comes from beet puree instead of food coloring, and it was delicious! The beets made it moist and dense and a great color, but you could not taste them. It was chocolatey and yummy!

And the rest of the appetizers:
Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips via The Girl Who Ate Everything
Veggie Crudites
homemade jalepeno jelly with cheese and crackers (my sister's contribution)
chips and my favorite fresh salsa
some Suddenly Salad pasta salad with added chicken & tomatoes
and my favorite, the Watermelon and Goat Cheese bites via The Meaning of Pie
(I had some help on those)


Phew! I think that covers it! I know she won't remember her 1st birthday party, but I still enjoyed spending time making these special touches. Someday she can look back at the photos and see what a fun day it was.

Linking up with Motivated Monday over on Be Colorful.