Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A First Birthday Party

We had Phoebe's first birthday party over the weekend. Her actual birthday isn't until Thursday, but my mom was in town and we wanted to include her in the celebration.
A couple of months ago, when we first mentioned Phoebe's party, Finn decided that it would be a mermaid party. And a mermaid party it was. And, essentially, he planned the whole thing...

First off, we needed a mermaid pinata. A mermaid pinata I asked? How on earth will we make one of those? And, it was actually even harder than I had anticipated. And, the only part that Finn would help with was the painting and the stuffing, so we couldn't even really blame the poor artistic quality on him! Instead of doing a traditional pinata where you take turns trying to bash it, we stuffed the pinata from a trap door in the bottom, and then taped a bunch of ribbons to the bottom of the mermaid. Only one ribbon pulled the trap door open and each child had a turn to come up and choose a ribbon to pull. Let me tell you- the anticipation was fantastic. If you are ever gutsy enough to make your own pinata, I would suggest the ribbon method. And I would also suggest making a shape that is not a mermaid.

Finn also insisted that I sew Phoebe a skirt out of mermaid fabric. Easy enough, right? Except that the only mermaid fabric I could find had to be ordered from etsy and was pretty expensive. But, it is darn cute.

And of course, a birthday crown! This one I needle-felted a mermaid onto. I thought it looked cute. Too bad she wore it for about 15 seconds.



For decorations, I made a PHOEBE banner out of some of the leftover mermaid fabric, and also made some simple felt garland, an idea that my friend Heidi had for her son's party recently. It was so cute that I just had to make some of my own....Finn made his own mermaid flags and also decorated the party bags with mermaids (some of them were superhero mermaids).



And, the best part.... cupcakes! Chocolate buttermilk cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and coconut cupcakes with buttercream frosting. All courtesy of Martha Stewart. I guess I should also thank her for the couple of pounds I have probably gained from eating the leftover cupcakes!


All in all, the party was a success, Phoebe only cried a few times, and nothing disastrous happened. I just can't believe my baby is already (almost) one. Pin It Now!

7 comments:

  1. How sweet! Happy 1st Birthday Phoebe! I love the banner and your son did a fabulous job on the loot bags. What a lovely memorable mermaid party :)

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  2. I love it! The birthday crown is adorable, and I can't believe you attempted a mermaid pinata. That takes gets!

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  3. Oh so great T! I love it- I love the theme and all your thoughtful details- The skirt you made P is adorable and even if she only wore the crown for a few seconds you got a perfect photo- which in my book is all that counts!

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  4. BTW I wanted to add that I can't believe P is one already- I remember you blogging when you were still pregnant with her.

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  5. What a wonderful party for your little one. Happy Birthday Phoebe!!!

    Love the felt garland, I can see one in our future :)

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  6. Wow! She is beautiful. I am so envious of how good you are at this stuff. I just don't have the a)skill or b)patience, so I end up buying everything and it isn't nearly as personable. The best part is you make it look effortless. :)
    Got any ideas for a creative first (boy) birthday??

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  7. I will have to ask Finn for ideas.. he is the authority on party planning!!

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