{ Matilda's Summer Garden Party }

This past weekend was my daughter, Matilda Jane's 1st Birthday Party.  The party was inspired by the fabric I made her birthday outfit from - Heather Bailey's "Nicey Jane". We decided to do an intimate party and had 20 of our closest family and friends over to the Cottage Garden to celebrate.

Miss Matilda had a great time at her party and thoroughly enjoyed her cake.  It was her 1st time to have something that delicious so she was in baby heaven!

I used the same fabrics that I designed Matilda's birthday dress in and made a pennant banner.  I didn't have a pattern for this, I just sewed two rectangles of fabric (right sides together), turned them right-side out, pressed them and stitched them to coordinating bias tape.  I think these will also be great for Easter decorations in the future.

The flowers were cut from our own garden.  We have several large hydrangea bushes that are in full bloom right now.  So the morning of the party, I went out and cut a big bouquet of flowers.  I placed the flowers in a silver, tall galvanized bucket to match some of the other decorations for the party.  I love being able to use the nature around us - and what's even better, is the flowers were absolutely free!

I made large, over-sized paper pinwheels from several shades of blue and green.  I spray painted wooden dowel rods green, cut square pieces of scrapbook paper into pinwheel shapes and hammered them into the rods with basic tacks.  I placed these into the same tall, galvanized metal buckets as the flowers.  I placed fiberfill inside the buckets to hold them in place, but florist foam would work even better.

I wrapped each set of silverware in coordinating yellow napkins and tied them with a blue satin ribbon.

I made large paper balls using this great tutorial from Martha Stewart.  These were VERY easy to make (they took like five minutes each) and only cost me $1.00 since I bought the tissue paper from our local dollar store.

 

Here is little Matilda's birthday hat.  I simply covered a cardboard birthday hat with coordinating fabric, added a ruffle and some rick-rack to match her dress.

As I have mentioned before, my husband is an award-winning home-brewer.  He makes a beer (for the adults, of course) for each of the girls birthday parties.  Here is Matilda's 1st birthday beer.  Brett made this sign to put on the keg at the party.  He served four different beers on tap, but "Tilda's Sweet Cheeks Wheat" was the main attraction.

For the party favors, I gave out summer beach bags.  I took a store-bought tote bag and appliqued each family's last initial onto the bag in fabric from Matilda's birthday dress. 

I have so much fun menu planning!  It takes me some time to figure out what I want to serve, but since we did a smaller party this time, I was able to focus more on the food.

I wanted to make something festive to drink, so I pureed a 1/4 of a watermelon, added 1/2 cup sugar and mixed it with some ginger ale.  This made, what I like to call, Watermelon Fizz.

I made a large anti-pasta platter as an appetizer for our guests.  I used red-leaf lettuce as the base for my platter.  I marinated some fresh mozzarella, lightly roasted some tomatoes, and got some other store-bought ingredients to complete the tray.  I served crostini and bread-sticks on the side.

Loaded Potato Salad

Pecan Coleslaw

Zucchini with Red Onion and Feta

Grilled Corn Salad with Roasted Peppers

Fruit Kabobs

Fresh Watermelon

These are the birthday cupcakes on the tiered trays that I made last week (remember this post?).  These are store-bought cupcakes - have I mentioned before that I DO NOT bake?  I simply added large, clear sugar to the top of these little cakes.  

I don't care for baking and I don't think I'm very good at it - too much precise measuring and science for me.  I much prefer the creativity of cooking.  Anyway, I made these "1" cupcake toppers using my Cricut Expression machine and glued them to lollipop sticks. 

Big sister Savannah had a great time at the party and was a really big helper.  She thoroughly enjoyed the juicy watermelon.

We truly lucked out with fabulous weather the day of the party - low 80's, no humidity.  It could not have been more perfect!

It's very hard for me to believe that my little sweet pea will be one on Thursday.  Matilda Jane has brought so much joy to our lives and as I write this post, I just want to give that little munchkin a squeeze.  

We Love You, Matilda!