Rylee's 1st Birthday

I was really excited to throw my daughter Rylee's first birthday. Ever since I was pregnant with her I have been obsessed with the mod monkey design of the little girl monkey image with the flower in her hair. It's so cute, I made her nursery carters "jungle jill" theme. So when she was about six months old I began the planning for her birthday party. I had a plan to do whats never been done before, and that's create a party myself.I searched the web for weeks looking for the perfect mod monkey image to use to make my decor and invites. I seen just about every mod monkey on etsy but it seems that most monkey parties for girls use the color scheme of pink and lime green. I really wanted to do a pink and yellow monkey theme. I found a pink and yellow monkey theme on a graphic design site called dimple prints (they also have a blog). I paid about $20.00 to get a PDF image with custom party printables that included Rylee's name. My budget was not very large, because her father does not believe in big parties for toddlers. Despite that minor disagreement and the short budget,I decided to have the party at my home and to make it as unique and meaningful as I possibly can. I see that desert tables are very trendy, So i created a desert bar with banana pudding push pops, lemon-strawberry shortcake, custom monkey cake pops, and bananas. I made dum-dum lollipop flowers as centerpieces for the tables that I also gave away as prizes. Her smash cake I made it look like monkey image from the party decor we printed out. I also made a memory book for Rylee. Since its not likley that she will remember her first birthday,I encouraged guest to write messages to Rylee about herself and the party, so she can read them when she gets older. The party was fun to plan, and also a lot of work. My friends and family really came through to help me create the vision I had in my mind.

• What People Ate

  Hot dogs, hamurgers

• What People Drank

  water, juice soda

• Best Moment

  clean up contest

• Desserts

  lemon-berry shortcake, banana pudding, lemonade cake, cake pops, dum-dums

• Party Favors

  monkey cake pops

• Activities / Games

  monkey drawing contest

• Budget

  almost $500

• dimpleprints

  Graphic Designer

  http://www.dimpleprints.com