Sweet blue and yellow picnic-theme first birthday party

Amanda of the Homely One blog is a long-time Bondville reader and I love checking in on her family and life from time to time. She recently hosted a birthday party for her daughter Sophie's first birthday - such a special one, as much for Mum and Dad as it is for the little one. Amanda shares with us her tips and hints for putting together a simple and perfectly sweet picnic party. Not too much fuss (who needs that for a first birthday?) but lots of sweet touches and lashings of love. Looks pretty perfect to me.

Party: Sophie's 1st Birthday Party
Organised by: Sophie's Mum Amanda (Homely One)
Location: at home in Perth
Theme: Picnic Party

Invitation: I designed a simple invitation using a set of graphics I purchased on Etsy. I recoloured them to suit the blue and white colours we were using for the party and printed the invites out on textured card as a special touch. A corner punch finished them off nicely.

Cake: I put a lot of time into the cake, making over 150 daisies from fondant icing to cover the cake (these were made a fortnight before the party and stored in an air-tight container). The cake itself was a simple vanilla cake, smothered in buttercream frosting and then finished off about half an hour before the party with the sugar flower decorations.

Party food: I kept to simple 'picnic-style' finger foods such as homemade sausage rolls, sandwiches, chicken and mango meatballs, zucchini slice, white chocolate and berry tarts, cupcakes, chocolate brownies, jelly cheesecake and a fruit platter.

Decorations: Decorations were all made by myself and consisted of a photo board, fabric bunting, jars of daisies wrapped in gingham ribbon and washi tape cupcake flags as well as checked tablecloths. I also designed some bag toppers for the party favours that coordinated with the invites I had made.   We had some smaller tables set up under our patio and picnic blankets spread out under the shady corner of our yard with a picnic basket filled with baby toys to keep the little ones happy. 

Birthday Girl wears: I bought Sophie's dress from a local craft market - it is made by Etsy seller lalalanddesign. The white petal hat was a gift from a friend brought back from the UK.

Games/activities: We didn't have any party games as such - the young ones were happy on the picnic rugs with our basket of toys and the nearby sand pit while the older children had a table of bubble mix and bubble blowers set up for them. 

Budget Tips/general advice: My advice would be to use as much of what you already have when it comes to decorating. While I could have gone with the traditional 'red and white' for my picnic theme, I am more of a blue person and therefore I chose to go with blue and white instead so that things like tablecloths, platters and so on which I already owned fitted in with our theme.

Also, when preparing for any party, do as much as you can ahead of time. Sort out things like invites and decorations as far in advance as possible, leaving the last days to focus on preparing/buying food.

Thank you so much Amanda for sharing Sophie's lovely picnic party with us. For more photos of Sophie's special day, head over to Amanda's blog Homely One.

Images: Amanda (Homely One)