For Little M&M's 1st birthday, we decided to have a hot air balloon party! One of his favorite songs at the moment is a singalong from a book called Up, Up, Up! by Susan Reed. Here is a link to the book from the Barefoot Books website. If you click on "STEP INSIDE" you can hear that catchy tune! It's a classic in our house.
The Invitation
First I created a simple invitation in Photoshop using a hot air balloon coloring page I found through Google. I was lazy this year and just emailed the invite to everyone.
The Decorations
It's a hobby of mine to plan and prepare for a party. First I created a banner wall for above the food table. We had two parties. The first was actually a play date to celebrate Little M&M and three of his friends who were turning one at about the same time. So I included all of their pictures in hot air balloons. We took those down for the second party, and used Little M&M's as a cupcake topper! The orange and blue hot air balloons were 3D. I just cut out two of them for each hot air balloon, folded them in half and glued them together. So eye-catching, and I love how you can see them so well from afar this way!
We found some cloud balloons on Amazon. Aren't they cute?
You always have to feature a monthly photo display for a first birthday party! Inspired by this idea from Martha Stewart, I decided to use vellum paper. The cardboard frames were $1 for a pack of three at the Dollar Tree. I hung these on the window and they looked fantastic with the light shining through! This picture happened to be taken on a snowy day, but they looked even better in the sunshine.
And I wanted to include some hot air balloon reading material!
The Food
Here is our food table!
Water bottles with a custom label I made.
Hot air balloon fruit baskets!
Our favorite Super Bowl cheese ball, shaped like a hot air balloon instead of a football.
We made some deviled eggs as well, and I dyed them in blue and orange to match Little M&M's party colors.
The cupcakes with my custom toppers!
Our famous Oreo Cookie Pops, in Little M&M's party colors. Always a huge hit!
The Photo Op
I found this awesome idea on Pinterest. You can find the original with instructions here. Their's is incredible! We went a cheaper route. We used blue tablecloths (you can use a coupon at Party City and get a huge roll for about $8, with tons to spare for future parties) for the backdrop. The 3' balloon was $4 from Amazon. The laundry basket is the one we've been using for about a decade. And we used yarn that I had on hand instead of rope. Clouds cut out from printer paper. Ta-da!
It was a pretty ambitious photo op to do with small children, but we gave it a shot. The birthday boy was not too happy. Most pictures had him screaming, tipping over or climbing into Daddy's arms. Here is the only decent shot we got of him!
Little M&M and big sister Honey Pot!
And some friends and cousins enjoying a hot air balloon ride!
Goody Bags
I always like to put a little bit of thought and theme into our goody bags. I found cute sun-catcher crafts from the Dollar Tree, as well as some stickers. And using this fun website, I created custom coloring books. On the cover was a hot air balloon coloring page I found on Google. For our play date party, the inside featured one page of each friend. For our family party, it featured one page for each cousin. (See Honey Pot's as an example in the picture below!) They came out AMAZING, and we received so many compliments on them.
Craft
As part of their present to Little M&M, my sister and her daughter did this fun hot air balloon craft! They used con-tact paper and stuck on little strips of tissue paper for the balloon. Isn't it sweet?? So cute in the window!
The Outfit
The boy needed a cute birthday outfit. We decided just to buy a hot air balloon patch, and iron it onto a white t-shirt. Super cute, and cheap! Here's the birthday boy!
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