Cora's Sweet Winter One-derland First Birthday Party

I have been planning this party since the day I found out I was pregnant with my little girl! I am so happy with the way it turned out!

The color palette for I chose was kind of a no-brainer. Super sparkly and feminine, I used beautiful shades of coral, and dusty rose pink with gold and wintry woodland accents.

The main feature of the party, (aside from the beautiful birthday girl herself!) was the sweets table. I created the backdrop with scrapbook paper pinwheels, paper tissue fans, and snowflakes. The table itself was decorated with little bottle brush trees, tiny woodland animals, gold mercury glass candle votive, and sprinkle snow.

Guests were able to mix up their own cup of gourmet cocoa at our yummy hot cocoa bar, complete with homemade marshmallows and salted caramel sauce.

The backdrop to the birthday girl's cake smash area is probably one of the best things ever! When we purchased or 1936 home, we found the two vintage glass-paneled french doors hiding in the rafters of our garage. My husband added a couple of hinges and bada-bing, instant photo back drop to use again and again! I put a few of our favorite pictures of Cora through-out her first year on the glass panes, and added a tissue paper garland. The whole thing came together so nicely!

• What People Ate

  Most of the treats offered were handmade at home. I love to create beautiful sweet treats to share, and creating lovely dessert tables helps feed (ha, pun) my passion! Sparkly homemade snowflake sugar cookies, red, white, and chocolate cupcakes with yummy vanilla butter-cream and a sweet gold sparkly snowflake on top, snowy powdered donut holes, chocolate covered Oreo cookies, spice, and chocolate cake pops, pretty little french macrons, pink Sixlets candies, and ice cycle pops (clear rock candy suckers).

• What People Drank

  Sparkling pink party punch from glass milk bottles with birch paper straws (not pictured)

• Party Favors

  Handmade miniature deer snow globes. I absolutely adored these! They turned out so incredibly sweet and were such a hit

• Activities / Games

  We asked all of our guests to write a message to Cora; sharing a prediction of her in the future, or a sweet message of love, that we put in a time capsule for her to open on her 21st birthday. We also added receipts for bread, milk , eggs, and gasoline, a thumb drive of 2014's most popular songs, ticket stubs from events we attended this year, a list of popular t.v. shows, movies, fashion trends, and current (appropriate) slang words, year in review People, Time, and Sports Illustrated magazines, small Frozen and Lego Movie toys, and a couple of fun limited edition comic books. We also had a beautiful handmade (and labor-intensive) pink and gold fringed pinata for the kids to whack around. I, unfortunately, was not able to get a picture of the thing before my husband strung it up with some very ugly and thick rope.