Lila's 1st Birthday-Wizard of Oz

Our little girl turned one in December last year. Now, I'm a lady that likes my themes. When I say like, I mean LOVE and I tend to go a little overboard. Lila's 1st birthday was no exception! 

I am however, a lady on a budget and really cant justify paying money to someone to do something for me that I could easily make/bake/create/decorate myself!

I love DIY. I love getting creative. I don't love the hours and hours and constant stream of late nights leading up to these parties but I just.cant.help.myself!

So, for Lila's first birthday I went all out...within a budget.

The invitation really set the theme

Wizard of Oz 1st Birthday Invitation

From there, I had to cull the millions of ideas I had running around inside my head into just a few. That was hard. VERY hard!

I knew I wanted Lila to be dressed as Dorothy so I set to work designing and making her costume. 

The birthday girl in her DIY Dorothy costume

I'm only a beginner sewer so the quality is probably terrible, but she looked cute on the day and that was the main thing!

Dorothy Costume from the back

For Lila's costume I made her a little apron out of some gingham fabric I bought at Spotlight.
I loosely followed this tutorial from The Dating Divas I then added a little white trim to the edges and a red sequinned letter 'L' to the front. 
I also made her a little blue tutu to go under the apron from this tutorial I found at 
The Idea Room.
 Her 'ruby red slippers' were from Pumpkin Patch and the little red hair bow I think from Big W? 

Unfortunately on the day she wasn't feeling very well so we didn't get many pictures of her smiling. Poor little poppet. 

PARTY DETAILS

THEME

Wizard of Oz

INVITATIONS

little house inspired.

as pictured above.

VENUE

Our house

DECORATIONS

'Somewhere over the rainbow' balloon backdrop with DIY birthday bunting made from doilies, blue card and red cut-out letters

DIY witches legs decoration-red shoes from op shop, and children's striped tights stuffed
with newspaper and placed under the the kids cubby house

We also had a 'follow the yellow brick road'. We made this from yellow A3 card which we taped to the floor in our house leading guests from the front door through to the back deck where the party was. BUT we forgot to take a photo of it. 

PARTY FOOD

CAKE

Wizard of Oz Birthday Cake

Handmade fondant Wizard of Oz characters

CUPCAKES

Red velvet 'Ruby Slipper' cupcakes

Rainbow cupcakes with DIY cupcake toppers to match the bunting

COOKIES

Sparkly ruby red number 1 sugar cookies

Toto sugar cookies

OTHER SWEET TREATS

Tin Man's heart chocolates

Sparkly red cake pops

I am yet to find a nice looking way to display my cake pops without them having to lay down or knock each other over.....

PARTY GAMES/ACTIVITIES

DIY Pin-the-heart on the tin man game.

Somewhere over the rainbow...number 1 pinata

We also had a face painter for all the kids. However, instead of ending up with 'lions and tigers and bears oh my' we ended up with 'skeletons, and spider-mans and fairies oh my'!?! Still, very cute and lots of fun though.

LOLLY BAGS

lolly bags with DIY thank you tags, string and sparkly
 red bows for the girls bags and gingham bows for the boys.

So, that was Lila's first birthday. As I mentioned in my previous post on Marleys 3rd birthday train party , this year we are having a joint birthday party for the kids. I figure this is probably the only year we will get away with doing it. They are still young enough to let me choose the theme, although Marley required quite alot of persuasion and compromise this year, Lila really has no idea. She loves playing with her dolls but that is all she is really into. She doesnt really watch TV so I have so far escaped anything 'Dora' or 'Disney Princess' themed. I am going to enjoy that while it lasts!

Until then, my plan is to keep updating this blog with a few more parties we have already had including Marley's Under the Sea 1st birthday party, his Teddy Bear's Picnic 2nd birthday party and my husbands Wild West 30th. 

Lisa xx