Baseball Birthday #1...or any age...

This is a retro post from my son's first birthday in August of 2009. My husband loves baseball and I was happy to jump on board a baseball themed party. I am well aware that the first birthday is as much of a celebration for the parents as it is for the child...if not more so. We invited the whole neighborhood and all of my family came in from out of town for the festivities. So, I had to go all out...5.14.11 Updated to show options and feature a 2-year old party invitation as well. All of the content can be changed to meet your needs. The size of this invitation is now 3.5 x 8, fitting into an #9 envelope. I would also love to do a retro-antique-y version of this invitation, so if someone gives me an excuse, their design fee will be waived.In line with the baseball theme, I thought it would be cute to design tickets to the party. We've been to many MLB games, so I had many old tickets to use as inspiration. I created a collage of 4 pictures through his first year of life and formatted the rest specific to his special day. The faux barcode has his birth date and time. The party details are repeated in the tear off section with special instructions with the r.s.v.p.

First let me say that I am not a party planner, nor do I want to be. I usually stop at invitations and paper/crafty stuff. But I thought I'd share a few of my other crazy ideas....that were likely way over the top...

I wanted the name of each child that would be attending because as their party favor, each child got their own pennant! It took me a while, but I cut every stinkin' one of those letters out of felt. :) I think the kids (ages 1-9) really liked the favor and it made a great decoration for our mantle.I dreamed up the idea for the cake several months before the party. Seriously...I dreamed it. I wanted to make a whole stadium. The field was made out of 2 giant cookie cakes put together. The bleacher seats in outfield, complete with "fans" were made using small cupcakes. I even had a crazy idea that they needed to be multi-cultural, so we used a variety of cake mixes: chocolate, yellow, white, & spice. My fabulous sister-in-law piped "hair" onto the fans in different styles using chocolate icing or yellow icing tinted yellow with food coloring. The same "fans" held signs with letters spelling out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and Connor was written in the outfield. The grass was made using two different shades of green sprinkles over white icing. Connor's smash cake held the #1 candle and was in the middle of the outfield bleachers. Normal size cupcakes decorated like baseballs lined the rest of the field. I know...a little over the top. Thank goodness my family was in town and willing to help because my sister-in-law and I were in a car accident several hours before the party! Thankfully no one was seriously injured, but it certainly added additional drama to the day!

Prior to the actual day of the party, I made baseball cake balls, stuck them on lollipop sticks and put them in a baseball Easter basket with a big styrofoam ball to hold them up...complete with green "grass". These were relatively easy to make and went over big as a sweet little appetizer before we cut the cake. Leave a comment if you want me to post directions. Don't look too closely...they are NOT perfect at all, but you get the point and not bad for my first try. :)

And the last homemade element of the party was the onesie I hand painted for Connor. This is what he changed into after he got a little messy from his little smash cake. Of course he is pictured riding one of his brand new birthday gifts!

Connor won't remember the party or any of the extra touches I did to make his day super special. However, I have fabulous memories of planning and executing and I love looking back at the pictures. They are a wonderful reminder of what a wonderful time we had, with lots of little baseball details....all with my special little slugger in mind. We are so blessed.