My daughter’s first birthday was really more for photos, us, and family, since babies aren’t really able to appreciate a party at 12 months of age. At that age, most babies don’t even know how to open presents. Or if they do, they’re more interested in tearing paper and playing with the packaging.

1. theme

When I was planning her party, she wasn’t “into” any particular characters (it makes sense, she hardly watched any television before then). Of course a few days before her birthday she somehow started saying “Minnie”, but since it was too late to change the theme to Minnie Mouse, I saved that theme for birthday #2. Instead, for her first birthday I did a purple and yellow little birdie theme. Toddlers do love birds! And she would often point to birds outside and say something that sounding like bird.  

2. invites (a little birdie told me…)

I came up with the simple little birdie illustrations below for the invites and more and included plenty of bird puns like “Bird day party”, “the year has flown by”, “tweetie-pie”, “migrate over”, “egg-sactly”, and “chirp at us”.

3. decorations

I printed a few of my bird illustrations and cut out to use as paper decorations. I used some of the printed birds as templates to sew a few felt versions of these bird decorations. I intended to fill the entire “photo display” with these paper and felt birds, but alas… The busy life of a new mom! This was before I bought the Silhouette Cameo, which would have allowed me to cut about 10 card stock birds in less than a minute!

Inspired by this photo banner, I also created a simplified printable download version, if you’d like to try making your own!

I always like having a custom banner spelling out the Birthday kid’s name, so I made this printable customizable full alphabet banner for my little chickie.

4. menu (she doesn’t eat like a bird!)

I came up with a somewhat bird-themed food menu. For the appetizer table, purple pickled deviled eggs added a perfect touch with purple and yellow! Some of the other items on the menu included “bird seed” crackers and hummus, and mini chicken pot pies.

For dessert we had lemon ricotta cookies, and of course the birthday cake (a vanilla sponge cake with beautiful purple-colored blueberry cream cheese frosting).

5. party favors & Thank you tags

I thought it would be a cute idea to have the older kids and maybe even the adults paint some bird houses.

And look at these cute little bird party favor tags I made to attach to the favors!

Thank you for reading to the end! Here’s a free printable of the below miniature purple and yellow banner.

Here’s another little project I did with the birdie illustration, in pink and green.

Leave a comment if you like the pink/green or if you prefer the purple/yellow color scheme better!

ABOUT ME

I am an experienced freelance graphic artist based in South Florida. With over 15 years in the graphic design field, I have worked for a diverse range of companies and clients. I specialize in print design (including package design, catalogs, flyers, business cards, collateral), as well as digital graphics (such as email marketing graphics, animated GIFs, landing page designs, web banners and more). My work is characterized by efficiently and successfully interpreting the request and translating it into a finished design. I am excited about the opportunity to work on new graphic design projects. If you’d like to work with me (or just say hello!), you can contact me at www.giddyhedgehog.com/contact.