Tag Archives: first birthday

Hello Lucky! Parties & Pretties

Oh my. So I’ve seen a few Circus birthday parties in my time. (You might remember this gorgeous circus party from Sandy of The Winding Road.) I have to say it’s the one theme that never really grows old for me….I’m still totally charmed by them! I was so excited to discover this deeeeelightful party from the ladies of Hello! Lucky. Little Jude was turning 1, and boy did his mama turn it out!

The cookies! The cake! It’s all perfect….down to the red stripy napkins! (found via Shop Sweet Lulu) These cupcakes are also so sweet. I love the homemade look to them and the rad little flags.

These super charming birthday hats were made out of pom poms, ruffly paper trim, stickers and poster board. LOOVE! You could also just get ready-made hats and add some poms and stickers to embellish them.

Here’s the adorable little Jude with dueling pianos!

Hee! I love the “ring of fire” hula hoop! Classic! And an upside down, flower pot becomes a great little circus stand with a little red and white paint.

How cute, huh? [can we discuss the amazing outfits on the grown ups?? high fives!] You can see even more of this terrific party on the Hello! Lucky blog.

While we’re on the topic of Hello! Lucky, I had to share some of their goods. A few years ago I was at a holiday warehouse sale and found their shop—where I was able to scoop up stacks of amazing letterpress cards for a song. I’ve been a fan ever since!

Hello! Lucky was founded by two very talented sisters, Eunice and Sabrina Moyle. Eunice Moyle is the creative director: a talented illustrator who began designing birth announcements and party invitations for friends and printing them on her antique Vandercook press. On a whim, she sent her card designs to Kate’s Paperie in New York City, and they immediately placed an order. Hello!Lucky was in business!

All their designs are super charming but I thought it would be fun to take a look at some sassy birthday announcements! Take a look and you’ll see what I mean:

They also do gorgeous custom letterpress announcements. Take a gander at these:

I’m a big fan of these sassy ladies! Be sure to swing by Hello! Lucky and see all of their beautiful work.

Oh, and don’t forget to enter our Winter Water Factory Giveaway! You could win the most adorable little dressie!


Widdle Wednesdays: Kiddo's First Birthday


If you’ve been around Camp Kiddo for a while, then you already know all about our conflicted stance on The First Birthday. On the one hand….your child is ONE, my friends. Will they reeeeeally remember (or even care?) that you personally captured marzipan owls from the sugar plum forest and handcrafted 73 different types of petit fours to replicate an authentic Parisian patisserie for the dessert table? Mmm. Prolly not.

Then again, HALLELUJAH sistah! you made it past the first year raising your beloved child and YOU DESERVE TO HAVE AN AWESOME BLOWOUT TO COMMEMORATE A YEAR OF NO SLEEP AND POOPY DIAPERS! We like to think of the First Year Birthday Party as more an homage to the parents. And frankly, I can’t resist a good party…soooooo guess what? We’re going to check out some awesome little parties today. Whoo hoo!

First up? Sebastian’s Spectacular Sailor birthday. I feel like parent’s of boys need to be even more creative than girls when it comes to parties. For some reason most people think little boys are all about dump trucks and dinosaurs and little girls get most of the sassy SWAG. That’s why I was totally head over heels when I saw this little man’s gorgeous fete over at Twig and Thistle.


Sebastian’s mother is graphic designer extraordinaire, Katie Phipps. I thought this little crafty invite was just amazing.

Ahoy matey….the lovely Katie made all the decorations herself. I love the nautical flag banners and thought the simple newspaper hats were  crazy charming (and who doesn’t love to wear a fun paper hat, I ask ya?).

Hand crafted pom pom tissue flowers add lots of color—and are really fun-n-easy to make.

Mmmmm. I love Swedish fish and these made a super cute cupcake topped—I think I might even like them better than the fancy shark! But of course the best part was little Sebastian himself, in his vintage sailor suit.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweet Sebastian! Yer mama did ya proud! To see even more of this adorable party, please swing by Twig and Thistle.

OK, next up we have something completely different:

Aubrey’s Milk and Cookies Birthday Party
Everyone knows cupcakes are hot, but really nothing beats the most basic, delectable cookie. I’m really loving the new trend of throwing Milk & Cookie Parties and I was completely taken with Anne Power’s amazing First Birthday for her little girl Aubrey.

I thought this was an especially clever idea: the party favours were little mini Frappuccino bottles, turned into milk jugs—served on ice, of course. Also, can we please discuss how awesome Baby Aubrey’s mock-cookie “Smash Cake” is??

Anne explains:

“The favor bottles were re-purposed Frappuccino bottles. I washed them and removed the labels. The lids were kind of tricky to get completely clean – some elbow grease needed for sure. I printed new labels for both the side and lid. I used 1% milk for 1st birthday – get it!? I also used the bigger side label to thank the guests for coming. Attached to the bottles were little bags of cookies and a brown and white pattern straw.”

Anne offers up this great tip: LAMINATE all your bottle signage! When you’re tucking bottles into ice, the condensation will turn your labels to mush in no time.

Mmmm. Is it wrong that when looking at all these pictures I just want to holler, “MMMMmmm COOKIE, cookie cookie cookie cookie!!!!” in a Cookie Monster voice??

Such a sweet day….and I have to say Anne’s little girl Aubrey is crazy cute—check her out in her little polka dot dressie!

I think what I love best about this party is that you can go as fancy or as simple as you like. Sure the cake and all those details were spectacular, but you could easily create a totally delicious simple cookie bar with a big tub of mini milk cartons too. Have you thrown (or been to) any creative kiddo birthday parties lately? Please let us know!

To see more of Anne’s fun designs, and get even more details on this party, be sure to swing by her blog A Party Style. Thank you Anne for sharing sweet Aubrey’s day with us.

OH and PS…..don’t forget that this whole post is coming from the woman who SKIPPED HER SON’S BIRTHDAY THIS YEAR. Yes, poor Wolfie never had a party this year, so I’m officially giving you license to not do much of anything when that first birthday rolls around. I promise you, your bebe will NEVER remember….and when you tell him or her that you rented a flying dragon/unicorn for their first birthday, Dottie and I will TOTALLY back you up.

Sugarcoat It Studios–Modern Cakes

I must admit that on the eve of the Peach’s first birthday, I am rather wracked with guilt.

I’m not throwing her a birthday party.

Partly because I just can’t deal with throwing a party. Some people are effortless party throwers.  Other people start to hyperventilate the moment the invites go out and have several nervous breakdowns until the event just thinking about gift bags, entertainment for kids from age 13 to 3 months and how will they be able to blow up 250 balloons in 15 minutes and vacuum the cat and UGGGGHHHH!

Excuse me while I find a paper bag to breath into…

When the Peach is the lofty age of 12 or so and starts asking about her first birthday, I am fully prepared to lie and tell her we had a big blowout involving dancing bears, handmade glitter play dough and Lady Gaga.  I’m sure a couple of hours on Photoshop could produce some sweet fake photos of this event as “proof”. You’ll stand behind me, right? Right?

But the one thing she will have is a proper cake.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good cupcake.  The indulgent frosting. It’s demitasse serving size.  The snuggy comforting taste of it.  It is like holding a bit of one’s childhood in the palm of your hand.

But sometimes you need to break out the big guns and get a cake.

A cake that says: “IT’S MAH BABY’S BIRTHDAY, GOSH DARN IT AND I LOVE HER/HIM SOMETHING FIERCE, PEOPLE!”

And if you need that kind of cake, then let me introduce you to Krista Markell and Sugarcoat it Studios.

Krista has my heart. You see, she did the extraordinary. She ditched her full-time fancypants corporate gig to follow her passion. And her passion was cakes. I gotta admit with cakes as gorgeous as this, well,…I’m happy she quit her job.

You see what I mean?

These cakes are bananas. Actually, I’m sure Krista could make a banana cake if you asked! She made me coconut! Mmmm coconut.  She’d even put harajuku girls on it I asked for it, like Kate and Callie did. Yup, Krista is that cool.

Lucky Kent to have a cake this awesome!

This cake KILLS me it is so stunning. And matching invitation from Stolen Plate Press. Krista and Etienne work together often to create matching invites and cakes. I bow to their awesomeness.

This one takes the cake! (Hahaha!!! Who says puns are out of fashion?)

Thank you, Krista!