Wow. I am exhausted! Stayed up late, got up early, and worked like crazy to get everything ready but the party went off without a hitch. So hooray! And now, for your viewing pleasure, I’m giving you the grand tour of every. single. detail.

So, let’s begin with decorations. This is the dining room. The big, blue, fluffy balls are Martha Stewart tissue papers balls. I got the kit on sale at Michael’s. And really they inspired the whole theme. Originally I had planned on doing a Dr. Seuss or Lorax themed party. I had wanted the tissue paper ball kit in the pink and orange color scheme because they reminded me of Truffula trees from The Lorax. Then I saw that they were on sale…but only the blue green kit. I love blue right now and wondered what I could do with that…and the idea for a winter theme came to me. After all, Lucy is a winter baby! I left the two greenish tissue paper balls out since they didn’t really match. And I picked up blue and white streamers at the dollar store. I also put homemade snowflake decals on the chairs.

The foam snowflakes were on walls all over the apartment. We hooked up my laptop to our TV and had a slideshow of pictures of Lucy from birth through her first year playing during the party. We also had an iTunes playlist of songs she likes or that make me think of her playing the whole time. Here’s the playlist:

• Birthday – The Beatles
• I’m Like a Bird – Nelly Furtado
• Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – The Black Crowes
• In My Daughter’s Eyes – Martina McBride
• Winter Wonderland – Gordon Jenkins & His Orchestra/Louis Armstrong
• Waltz of the Flowers – Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker)
• Golden Slumbers – Ben Folds
• Baby Mine – Alison Krauss
• Fidelity – Regina Spektor
• Simple Gifts – Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss
• Blackbird – Evan Rachel Wood (Across the Universe)
• Say Hey (I Love You) – Michael Franti & Spearhead
• New Soul – Yael Naim {Lucy liked this song while she was still in the womb!}
• Neverland Medley – Kenny Loggins
• River Lullaby – Amy Grant
• I Feel It All – Feist
• Dear Prudence – Across the Universe cast
• Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles
• 1234 – Feist

These flowers were for me in celebration of me, you know, doing that whole “giving birth thing.”  I specifically requested hinted that I wanted white ones so they could double as party decor. Then we put them in a vase with blue glass gems and fake ice. I also added in the two blue glitter stick “thingies” and the silver “thingy.”
    
I’ve had the little snowglobe on the left since high school. It says “Ice Ice Baby” and has an ultrasound picture in it. I picked up the bigger snowglobe at the drugstore. And I’ve had the square block frame for a while. It came from Michael’s. The fake ice I scattered about also came from Michael’s. I had a few pictures of Lucy in her birthday dress printed ahead of time and used little display easels from the dollar store to showcase them.


This was the favor/prize/guessing jar table.

I picked up some blue jelly beans at Bulk Barn and let my guests try to guess how many were in the jar (from Michael’s). There were exactly 250. The winner got to keep the jar {which has silver snowflakes I drew with a sharpie} and the jelly beans of course!

Each guest received a goody bag with Wint-O-Green mints, a glitter snowflake ornament, and a scratch off “lotto” ticket. I got the idea for the scratch and win tickets from ArtMind. I drew the animal images {seal, beluga, and white caribou} myself {just like the invitations} on the computer. Then printed them on cardstock. If you’d like to use them for your own party just click on the images below, then right-click and “save as.” Make sure you get both pages. One is all winner cards and the other is all loser cards. Guests who got a winning card got to pick a prize…


The prizes all matched the theme. The polar bear cup and snowflake cookie cutter came from Walmart. Everything else came from Michael’s. I had a polar bear ornament, polar bear craft kit, two snowflake stamps, a blue and white candle, a snowflake wand, a blue glitter crown, and a snowflake soap.

The party “photo booth” is a popular idea I’ve seen all over the web. Mine wasn’t anything too fancy, just a blue plastic tablecloth from the dollar store and some of my foam snowflakes. Guests who wanted to got to have their picture taken in front of the backdrop and I’ll be sending them the files.
Now, on to food…

I got light blue plates and napkins from the dollar store.

We served veggies and dip, and celery with creme cheese {or “snowy celery”} as well as cheese and crackers {“sleds”} as the non-sugary snacks. We had mozzarella and white cheddar to keep with the blue and white theme. All the foods were labelled with the little snowflake place-cards {from, where else? Michael’s}.And they all had winter names. For example, we served melted snow {milk} and melted ice {soda}.

This cake was a key-lime coconut cake. It was a combo of two recipes. I followed the instructions for the cake from here but omitted the glaze and used canned frosting {with 1 tsp lime juice}.  And instead of baking it in a pan I followed the baking instructions here {minus the cream cheese center} to get a round snowball look. I really liked this cake. It was yummy.

I knew not everyone would want a cake with coconut so I planned chocolate cupcakes as well. Adam baked them and I frosted them. I was running late on preparations and they weren’t frosted until right before the party was set to begin. Fortunately my Twitter friend Krista gave me a cupcake frosting hint that is AWESOME and made it super easy and super quick to frost all the cupcakes. Melt your frosting in the microwave, then just dip the cupcakes in it. Easy peasy! I used a mix of plain white cupcake liners and pretty blue, patterned liners by Martha Stewart {from Michael’s}. But in the future I’ll bake the cupcakes in plain liners, then put a second liner on top because you couldn’t really see the color or pattern very well after baking the chocolate cupcakes in them.

These “icebergs” are cake balls {made famous by Bakerella}. I used white cake and blue candy melts {with blue sprinkles, both from Michael’s}. The snowflake garland {which was also used around the cake} was from...you know, I probably don't even have to tell you where I got it. These cake balls were a BIG hit, especially with the kids. The mini cupcake liners had a snowflake print. I can't remember where I found them, possibly Walmart or Superstore. And I may or may not have eaten a dozen of these things in the process of making them…
      This was Lucy’s personal cake. It’s also based on a Bakerella project. I didn’t have any white sanding sugar for my snowglobe so I just used more of the blue sprinkles. I may or may not have sliced my thumb with an exacto trying to make the globe part and then insisted Adam do it. And before anybody mentions to me that penguins and polar bears don’t live in the same place let me say this: I know. But the little polar bear toy I had and the little seal toy I had were too big for the snow globe cupcake. Besides, sometimes they DO live in the same place. It’s called the zoo. So there.

And here I am, with my little snow princess. She might hate headbands but she was totally cool with her birthday crown. She stayed up late, got up early, and woke up early from her only nap before the party. So she wasn’t in the most social mood. I wore her for part of the party. But by the end she let a few people hold her for a few minutes.  Her birthday dress came from Etsy and her snowflake shoes came from Superstore.

This was her very first taste of cake. She didn’t really know what to do with it. For the longest time she just sat there holding it and crumbling it. Eventually a little bit made it into her mouth. Tuesday {her actual birthday} I’m gonna give her another chance to have some, but with frosting!
So there we go. Months of obsessing planning, hours upon hours of crafting, and hours upon hours of baking for a few hours of party. But you know what? It was totally worth it. :)

PS: I think this most definitely counts for the December Photo Challenge, don’t you? Come back tomorrow for another picture.
PPS: Michael’s in no way sponsored this post. But they could have saved me a lot of cash if they had. Geez, they didn’t even offer!

Now, technically this isn’t a Christmas picture…it’s a sneak peak of the Winter ONE-derland party tomorrow. But it’s called the December Photo Challenge, not the Christmas Photo Challenge. So there.

I made 10 dozen of these little beauties for a Christmas cookie exchange party I’m attending tonight. These are one of my favorite cookies from my childhood. They're soft and moist and they’re SUPER chocolaty. Here’s the recipe:

• Chocolate Crinkles
  combine in a mixing bowl:
  3 beaten eggs
  1.5 cups sugar
  4 squares baker's chocolate
  1/2 cup oil
  2 tsp baking powder
  2 tsp vanilla
  gradually add:
  2 cups all purpose flour
  chill 1-2 hours {or overnight if desired}
  roll dough into 1 inch balls and roll in sifted powdered sugar
  place 1 inch apart on cookie sheet and bake @ 375 for 8-10 minutes
  cool on rack
  makes 4 dozen

Come back tomorrow for another Christmas photo for the December Photo Challenge.

Today I was trying to get a picture of Lucy in her Winter ONE-derland birthday dress. I have plans for displaying it on Saturday at the party. So I got her dolled up and started snapping pictures but found myself thwarted by…
 
…the well known torture device colloquially referred to as a “headband.”

The moment I got it on she ripped it off, despite the fact that it’s pretty much the softest, stretchiest headband ever {seriously, even I can comfortably wear it}. So I decided to give her a break to cool down.
 

I snapped a pic of her snowflake shoes so I could show them to all of you fine folks. I got some smiles on film my data card {sans headband}, and decided to try again…






Come back tomorrow for a new photo for the December Photo Challenge.

So…I had several people commenting on my post with the free invite downloads that while they do have winter babies, they won’t be turning one. So I’ve made a version of the download with “One-derland” spelled normally as “Wonderland.” These invites are suitable for any winter party, birthday or not. Just add your own text with the party details.

For the .png {for use in programs like Photoshop/Gimp/etc.} just click on the picture below, then select “save image as”}. For the vector file {for use in programs like Illustrator/Inkscape} click here.

ETA: You can now see pictures from the party, and get another free download for use in your goody bags.

The theme for Lucy’s first birthday party came to me when browsing Michael’s back in September: Winter ONE-derland! I think the combination of snow, pretty shades of blue, and cute arctic animals will make for a great party. And before you can have a party you have to have party invitations!
I made these invitations myself. I did them {including the polar bear illustration} in a vector program. Then I had them printed as 4x6 photos {which I’m having a little trouble finding envelopes for, but hopefully Staples will have them}. It only cost $1.90 plus tax to have 10 invites printed at Walmart. I just uploaded my file to their online photo center and they did the rest.
But I wanted to make the invitations extra special so I decided to give them the glitter of fresh snow with glitter glue pens from Michael’s!


Aaaaand…just because I’m awesome, and generous, and “ONE-derful” {and humble, apparently} I’m giving you a blank version that you can download for your own party {assuming you have a winter baby who’s turning one}. To download a .png invitation {for use in programs such as Photoshop} just click the picture below, then right click and save as. To download a vector file {for use in programs such as Inkscape or Illustrator} click here. You’ll also need to go to kevinandamanda.com and download the “Teacher’s Pet Font” {free}.
ETA: I didn't end up finding the right sized envelopes {they can be ordered online but I didn't have time for that}. What I ended up doing is buying blue envelopes and trimming the blue border off the invites. If you use these invites you could either order envelopes online, trim the blue border off, or have them printed with a white border and trim that off.
ETA: If you want to have a party for a kiddo that won't be turning one, or if you just want to have a winter party for the fun of it, you can get free invitations with "Winter Wonderland" instead of "Winter ONE-derland" by visiting this post.