Looking back at the year that went by, I cannot believe that I am already half way through my little boy's first birthday celebration! But its such a lot of fun..my head's filled with all sort of creative ideas and I feel as if I have become a fountain of creative ideas.
Planning for the first birthday well in advance really helps. Being a working mom and juggling between home and work leaves you with little time.Especially when you want to do so many things all at the same time. The internet and my search skills (I must take some credit right!) help me tremendously. Just browsing through different websites, searching and exploring various options made me come to the decision that I can do the decor and theme party myself with little help from technology and ofcourse my friends and family.
My little one just loves the elephant and is fascinated by different colourful objects as well. Therefore I decided to go for a "elephant rainbow theme".The artist in me arose and voila I came up with a cute idea for the invite! I simply doodled this design and sent it to friends and family. Here is a picture of what I came up with.
My people simply loved this creation and this further set the mood for doing something more exciting.
Next came the cake. I scoured the town down and searched for various options. I looked up justdial, read reviews of cake shops on mouthshut which proved to be very useful. I found this cakeshop called "Delicaie" - pronounced "delishey" at Bandra, Union Park road. The shop is just inside the restaurant Out of the Blue. They make some amazing 3D cakes. You can show them a picture of the cake and they do it for you. I wanted something cute and in consonance with the theme. I contacted several other cake and confectionery shops in Mumbai. My husband suggested the name of Shrinathji's in Lower Parel. They have all veg cakes and a wide and varied menu of some yummy cakes. I tried their fruit cake, chocolate truffle and another mixed variety. Loved the chocolate truffle cake. It just melted in my mouth. They were ready to deliver at the venue in Khar West and quiet economical too. The only problem I seem to encounter with all these places was that they were very impersonal.
But then something happened out of the blue. A friend happened to call for a cake from Shantanu Rao. I felt here is this chance of ordering the cake from the person who himself would bake it. And this proved to be very useful. I could explain everything to him in detail. I was also looking for extremely good quality of cakes, which he could provide since he bakes from his home, uses good quality ingredients and is also vegan friendly. We discussed various options that had. we had a tasting session. The cakes were yummy.
The guest list ran into a good number of 120 persons and we would need more that 5 kgs of cake. Plus ensuring that everyone got a piece of cake was tough. So he suggested that we place an order for a small 1-1.5 kg. 3D cake for the cake cutting. The rest he said would be cup cakes, which would be per person wise. I simply loved this suggestion as it would mean less mess, cutting a big cake into so many small pieces after the cake cutting and less mess distributing it too. All we would have to do was distribute the cup cakes from the boxes to all the guests immediately after cake cutting. :-). Will be posting some pictures from the party after the event.
I wanted to give personalised return gifts to all the kids coming for the party. I chose to hand paint pillow covers for all. This was a very good idea since pillow covers would be as useful for an 8 month old as an 18 year old. That was the wide age group including all my son's cousins.
I bought different coloured pillow cases. Painted the same kind of elephant as on the pillow covers as the invite on the left corner. On the right corner I painted some rainbow coloured hearts.
I bought different coloured pillow cases. Painted the same kind of elephant as on the pillow covers as the invite on the left corner. On the right corner I painted some rainbow coloured hearts.
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This is how it turned out...totally in consonance with our Rainbow elephant theme.
And this is how I gift wrapped it, also totally to go with the theme.
All you need to do is buy some blue gelatin paper, some colourful rainbow paper and satin ribbons. I got this rainbow paper on freeprintables. So I printed this paper at home.
For the decor of the venue, I wanted to make it very special but simple and colourful. And give a very personalised look to the place. So I decided to make some elephant cut-outs in rainbow colours again which would be the stage back drop as well as hung at different places at the venue. Purchased this colourful card stock from Anupam Stationary. This place is a crafters delight. You name it and they have it. You can also buy their stuff online. The stage would also have a rainbow of balloons alongwith the elephants. There will be a cake
table on the stage at the centre with the cake on top of it which would be the
highlight. I bought a musical candle, which sings happy birthday once
lit and looks really good.
The venue selection was quick. It had to be close to our house and very convenient too. We chose the Pathare Prabhu Hall at Khar. Very roomy, airy, has a lift for the elderly and the manager is good. It is very well maintained compared to several other venues that we saw. Plus we knew a caterer who regularly caters to this venue so that made the work that much easier.
The venue selection was quick. It had to be close to our house and very convenient too. We chose the Pathare Prabhu Hall at Khar. Very roomy, airy, has a lift for the elderly and the manager is good. It is very well maintained compared to several other venues that we saw. Plus we knew a caterer who regularly caters to this venue so that made the work that much easier.
I also purchased some rainbow candies for the kids..to be displayed right next to the cake! I found some awesome rainbow crayon at anupam stationary which I got..to be used as tatoos for guests on arrival!
For the menu we decided to go for a snacky but yet filling kid friendly menu. So we have asked for a pavbhaji counter, a live chat counter where some yummy chat like bhel puri, sev puri will be served fresh and a vegetable biryani. Some cooling soft drinks and yes a rainbow coloured icecream as dessert. How could we forget that!
With the cake ordered, the venue, decor and menu all set I turned my attention to what the birthday boy would wear. I went shopping. And at Westside found this amazing rainbow coloured t-shirt. Also found a denim romper to go with it. My mom volunteered to embroider the theme elephant on the front of the romper. Found some equally cute rainbow colored shoes at Crawford market. And voila, the birthday suit was ready to be worn! You will know how it looked from the pictures i post here under.
There was another thing left to be done. I had really longed to make a scrapbook, recording the year that went by for my little boy. Also wanted guests to record their wishes for him..wouldn't he enjoy reading it all once he grows up..but time was short and I had put this on the back burner as there were too many things to be taken care of. And then one amazing day I met a friend on my way back home from work. When I told her about the scrap book idea she wowed it and said she would help me put things together. I had already purchased a scrapbook from this store called kreatingkeepsakes. They have some lovely scrapbook embellishments too. I also shopped on itsybity. They have some wonderful stuff to decorate your scrapbook with and other stationery too. Also found lots of free printables from online resources. Some amazing coloured paper ready to be printed and stuff. The same place I printed the gift wrapping paper from for free! So, the scrapbook was getting ready. I purchased some paper again from anupam for people to write wishes on.
And the d-day arrived. It rained so heavily that I feared all my efforts would be wasted. But we had a very good turn out with only a few who couldn't make it. And we had a blast. Here is how the venue looked.
I thought of having a scrapbook display table. Since it was the rainy season I thought of having an umbrella hanging on top of the table to give it a different colourful look..Like this..
We put a banner "Pour you thoughts @ Paartha's den" inviting people to come and write their wishes for him. And it was a hit!
Shantanu Rao did a great job with the cake.Rainbow colours with an elephant on top!
We also had some delicious mouth watering cupcakes (Mango and blueberry flavoured) with rainbow coloured hearts on top! Also from Shantanu Rao. These were distributed after cutting the cake to all....they loved them..
Here is how the bday boy looked!
And look at the t-shirt and romper with the elephant!
For the menu we decided to go for a snacky but yet filling kid friendly menu. So we have asked for a pavbhaji counter, a live chat counter where some yummy chat like bhel puri, sev puri will be served fresh and a vegetable biryani. Some cooling soft drinks and yes a rainbow coloured icecream as dessert. How could we forget that!
With the cake ordered, the venue, decor and menu all set I turned my attention to what the birthday boy would wear. I went shopping. And at Westside found this amazing rainbow coloured t-shirt. Also found a denim romper to go with it. My mom volunteered to embroider the theme elephant on the front of the romper. Found some equally cute rainbow colored shoes at Crawford market. And voila, the birthday suit was ready to be worn! You will know how it looked from the pictures i post here under.
There was another thing left to be done. I had really longed to make a scrapbook, recording the year that went by for my little boy. Also wanted guests to record their wishes for him..wouldn't he enjoy reading it all once he grows up..but time was short and I had put this on the back burner as there were too many things to be taken care of. And then one amazing day I met a friend on my way back home from work. When I told her about the scrap book idea she wowed it and said she would help me put things together. I had already purchased a scrapbook from this store called kreatingkeepsakes. They have some lovely scrapbook embellishments too. I also shopped on itsybity. They have some wonderful stuff to decorate your scrapbook with and other stationery too. Also found lots of free printables from online resources. Some amazing coloured paper ready to be printed and stuff. The same place I printed the gift wrapping paper from for free! So, the scrapbook was getting ready. I purchased some paper again from anupam for people to write wishes on.
And the d-day arrived. It rained so heavily that I feared all my efforts would be wasted. But we had a very good turn out with only a few who couldn't make it. And we had a blast. Here is how the venue looked.
I thought of having a scrapbook display table. Since it was the rainy season I thought of having an umbrella hanging on top of the table to give it a different colourful look..Like this..
We put a banner "Pour you thoughts @ Paartha's den" inviting people to come and write their wishes for him. And it was a hit!
Shantanu Rao did a great job with the cake.Rainbow colours with an elephant on top!
And we had another surprise cake gifted by my husband's cousin and carried all the way from ItsyBitsy Bytes Bangalore..this was equally amazing!
We also had some delicious mouth watering cupcakes (Mango and blueberry flavoured) with rainbow coloured hearts on top! Also from Shantanu Rao. These were distributed after cutting the cake to all....they loved them..
And then we cut the cake...here are a few cute pictures from the Party
