Sawyer's Tribal 1st Birthday

When Sawyer's 1st birthday was coming up, I knew there wasn't much of a reason to throw any HUGE party because he wouldn't remember it. But being this is my hobby and I enjoy doing it so much, things continually became bigger and bigger without notice. It started out as a chill camping party because Eric loves camping and I figured he would approve of doing a fire and roasting Smores on his sons birthday. I figured it would be a win, win because I would be able to put Sawyer in adorable tribal pants and moccasins. I figured every party needed the following: A cake, balloons, some decorations, a backdrop, a theme, cute invitations, the birthday boy dressed up, pictures of the last year, and plants or flowers. I had seen some cute ways to make some flowers more manly for the boy parties. None of them were gonna bring the theme together without costing an arm and a leg. That is when I decided to paint some pot I already had with triangles and some fun color blocking. I took a trip to Ikea and found live succulent plants for 2.99 a piece!!! I got enough to fill my pots and was on my way. I had a large letter "S" sitting around my craft room, I spray painted it a metallic gold. When it came time to do the invitations I knew exactly what I wanted but knew I didn't have the graphics to make it happen so I got my friend Kristy to do them! I was so happy with how they turned out! I made some turquoise envelopes with orange chevron inside them, backed the invites in navy card stock, added some colorful feathers inside and sent them on their way! I had always seen these adorable A-frame tents that you can make for your kids playroom. I asked my amazing husband to use his woodworking skills and together we made 3 tents for the kids to play in. Two of them I covered in chevron fabrics, the other one I hand painted some triangles on some cheap muslin fabric and made some yarn tassels to string around the frame. I knew I wanted some themed photos of Sawyer in his tribal leggings and moccasins sitting around the party, my husband once again was a good sport and loaded the car up one early morning and drove with me up to the canyon to take some pictures. We had our work cut out for us when Sawyer wanted to do anything but sit still for pictures but we got what we could and were on our way. I wanted some sort of "backdrop" behind the present table because I had the perfect place for it, up against a white wall in our backyard. I decided to make my own dreamcatchers in different sizes with embroidery hoops, some fun fabrics, and some accents to put inside. I knew I wanted the biggest dream catcher to be in the middle and include the large letter "1" that I had bought at a close-out sale for 50 cents, months before. Parents could sit casually around the fire or on couches in my house but I wanted to make sure that the kids had a special little place to sit. I made some place card holders out of some metallic paint and plastic woodland animals to display their names. I then made mini teepees out of party hats and paper to sit by the table settings. Every party with little kids needs favors. I got some mason jars I already had, painted the tops of them and topped them with metallic gold woodland animals and filled them with candy. I wanted the moms to have something special to take home too so I made triangle earrings with a tutorial from THEALISONSHOW. The day of the party we set out the tents, put chairs around the fire, I set up a little fire roasting bar. We got some helium balloons from a near-by party store and I added tassels to them. We served chili dogs, homemade mac & cheese , pulled pork sandwiches and desserts. I wanted to do the tradition of having Sawyer smash into his birthday cake but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it  so I got tips from my cake making friend and attempted to make it on my own. It was orange on the outside and the layers were an ombre turquoise inside. For being one of my first homemade layer cakes, I was  happy with how it turned out. All of our friends and their little kids came over and put on their homemade feather headbands and hung around the campfire. Sawyer wouldn't dig into his cake! He dipped his finger in it and tested the waters like a little girl who is afraid of germs. Oh well! It was a fun night and a great way to celebrate the hardest and most rewarding year of my life!

Here are some of the favorites from the photos that Eric and I went out to take that early morning