Nellie's first birthday party (for which I make pretty things to look at).

As posted previously, we celebrated Nellie's first birthday a couple of weeks ago. I posted a couple of updates on some of the decorations I made in preparations but thought I'd post a round up of what decorations I used for the day.

I knew I wanted the theme to be girly, so hard to avoid!, but wanted to dilute the pinkness. I had selected these invitations from lovecreationgal on etsy which really set the notion of bunting and using pale pink, pale turquoise and pale yellow as a color theme.

I selected some double-sided scrapbooking paper from Spotlight to use for the bunting, threading some ribbon through punched holes. I used scraps from this for the bunting on the cake plate with a finer ribbon.

I used some tissue paper for the paper pompoms - I made these for Nellie's baptism party and also Christmas so feeling pretty confident with them now, so guaranteed to be at every party we have hereafter! I use 10 sheets per pompom to get the effect I like.

I posted earlier on the 'felt' pompom garlands. I also stitched together some felt and flannelette heart garlands. Each heart is felt on one side and scrap flannelette on the other, using embroidery thread and a running stitch to stitch them together, making sure they are caught onto the ribbon, the same type used for the paper bunting.

Lombards was the source of the pearlescent balloons in the right shade. I also found some plain white paper cups at Lombards for the punch - I could not find them anywhere else and quite frankly, for the price I would never by plastic again if I can avoid it.

Apart from the heart garlands, which were a bit time-consuming, the goodie bags took a bit of time but were worth it in the end. I bought packs of small paper bags from a $2 shop. I used single-sided scrapbooking paper from Lincraft and after a fair bit of fiddling around I made little folded medallions. I hot-glued these, with some fine ribbon (same as used on the pompom garlands), a small paper doily and a scrap button, onto the bags.

Each bag contained a lolly bracelet or lollypop, a flavoured straw, a pencil and WizFiz - something for everyone. By happy coincidence, it was all gluten-free, which averted disaster for two of our little guests.

We strung up some crepe paper (bit disappointed that the pale pink was so pink when unrolled as to be almost colorless), borrowed a gorgeous 'Happy Birthday' bunting borrowed from a friend, and at the last minute I made a quick pompom necklace for myself.

Ready to party!