Piper's 1st Birthday Party

I was remarkably relaxed about Piper's birthday. Perhaps because she's too young to give feedback.  I think limiting it to family only helped a lot as BYO coffees and a plate of muffins would kept everyone happy, so the pressure was off.  I had wanted to make her a flower crown and dress her in a little not-too-pretty romper.  I wanted to make a dream catcher with scraps of white lace and orchids. I wanted edible flowers in the salad and atop cup cakes. I wanted to finish renovating the exterior of the house and blah blah blah, the list goes on. But in the end, we can only do what we can do.  

I work long hours and as it all-too-often happens, time caught up to me and energy was lost to me, so I had to pare back my plans. Thanks to a beautiful friend (heartfelt thanks must go to Elizabeth for the beautiful cake bunting and party hat); a party dress purchased on line (and on-sale); a Saturday morning at the markets; an afternoon of baking; and an evening of printing and snipping - a beautiful sunny day was created for our beautiful girl.

Once I decided on the adorable Kelli Murray invitations (delivered by hand or left on doorsteps and tied with fine gold thread and sweetpeas), I had the basis of my colours (creamy/muted pretty) and cuteness.  That little owl's face, I just loved. So she was cut out and pasted on straws and sat in little quilted preserving jars awaiting ginger cordial.  The tee pee straws were made for sipping sparkling water from mini bottles. A dispenser for cordial and pretty paper cups and plates for the kids followed.  Making only a large salad I delegated the food duties, buying quiches and taking up Piper's nan on her offer to make sandwiches.

Mr took the bubs for a walk the day before so I could bake a blood orange cake (that's how I got the pink coloured icing - I was after white but embraced my mistake) and a choc-vanilla layer cake (this one was from packets) topped with fresh flowers with the left over batter made a little teepee cake for Piper's 'smash-cake'.

As I don't have drawer fulls of plates and cutlery, napkins (Fine Little Day from Lark) were used for quiche and cake and vintage saucers and cake forks for salad. Paper cups (left over from our wedding & labelled thanks to a sheet of sticker paper from my mum's office) served us well for tea and coffee.

I thought our babe would be too young to understand, but she soaked it all in and knew it was her special day. There was a little bit of magic in the air.