Today’s Smock Real Party feature is another fabulous first birthday party. And we mean truly truly fabulous! Sent to us by Debra Saba of Luxe Expressions and taken by Andrea Taylor Studio, the photos of this party have us completely inspired to find any excuse we can to throw a really exquisite celebration of our own.
Working with Debra from Luxe Expressions, Smock created these beautiful letterpress invitations for Cydney’s birthday, featuring the monogram that was incorporated throughout all of the event details. The custom navy and fuchsia inks were matched to the colors of the decor and flowers, for a beautifully coordinated effect.
And, of course, any daughter of an NFL player needs her own personalized jersey to serve as a guest book at her first birthday party! We love how the colors of the linens, stationery and flowers were so perfectly girly and fun, but still really sophisticated. The theme of the day was all things sugar and spice, which we completely adore.
From the letterpress invitations, to the monogrammed cake, to the personalized cotton candy sticks and the luxurious satin and tulle linens, this birthday party was an incredibly thoughtful and festive celebration. Thank you so much to Debra for sharing with us!
Today we are thrilled to welcome a guest to the Smock blog, Seana, who recently hosted the most incredible first birthday party for her daughter Madeline. Inspired by the Smock letterpress party invitations she sent to guests, Seana crafted a beautifully handmade, eco-friendly party that has us dreaming up any number of excuses to host great parties. Without further ado, Seana shares with us more about Madeline’s fabulous birthday celebration…
A couple months after my daughter Madeline was born, I was perusing the web for eco-friendly paper companies who had cute birth announcements. I came across Smock and fell in love with the Horsey stationery suite. I decided right then and there they would be the invitations for my daughter’s 1st birthday party. Needless to say, I never actually sent out birth announcements (I know, bad mom!) but as Madeline’s June thirtieth birthday was approaching, I went back to Smock and bought the invites along with the matching Delft correspondence cards for thank you notes. They became my inspiration for her party! I went with an aqua and coral color scheme and started planning the decorations, cake and menu.
It is very important to our family that we make as little impact on our environment as possible so Madeline’s party was planned with that in mind. On my home computer, I designed and printed the happy birthday banner and the party favor nametags. I bought some scrap fabrics and ribbons in coordinating colors in order to make the flag banners and “doilies”. One of my favorite projects was the picture banner. I made a fabric flag banner but left some extra space between the flags, there I used graphic clothes pins to hang home printed pictures of Madeline starting at birth and on through her first year. There won’t be a birthday party for Madeline every year but I will continue to hang the birthday banner, I’ll just change out the number. I will also continue to hang the picture banner, switching out photos for ones from the year we are celebrating. It will become a birthday decoration tradition and it’s much better to re-use than to buy new every year.
The cake, cookies and mini smash cake were fantastic! I went to this really great bakery right down the street from our home in Chicago, The Bleeding Heart Bakery. It is an organic bakery known for their innovative designs and the environmentally responsible way in which they operate their business. I brought in the invites and thank you cards for inspiration and they came up with a delicious carrot cake with the invitation horsey on it. They also made the bird cookies to look like the bird sweetly perched on the horsey’s back. Madeline’s mini smash cake was actually sweetened with agave nectar instead of sugar, a request I made so as to curb that sugar overload for such a small body, and they were happy to oblige.
I will admit that if there is a way that I can get out of a lot of clean up after a party, I am all for it. One way is to use disposable utensils, plates and napkins. Unfortunately using all of that plastic is just not good for the earth so I set out to find some environmentally ways to make the party easier without compromising quality. After doing my research I found some great alternatives. We used disposable, compostable bamboo plates made by the company Bambu and we used disposable, biodegradable utensils made from potato, yes potato! Called Potatoware, these utensils were strong, in fact a lot less brittle than your regular plastic kind. I really couldn’t justify using paper napkins, so we went with cloth, but that was ok, it gave me another excuse to add some color by tying the rolled utensils with ribbon.
The simple menu consisted of:
• Green salad made from our CSA lettuce, organic cherry tomatoes, onions and artichokes all topped with a goddess dressing.
• Fruit salad made up of our CSA strawberries, in-season organic blueberries and in-season cantaloupe.
• Cheeseburgers with condiments also coming from our CSA.
It’s amazing how you can have a fairly simple meal taste SO good just by using fresh, in-season local food.
It was not a very large party, just a few of our close friends and their kids but it was such a nice way to get together to celebrate our little girl’s first year. Madeline is the joy of our lives; she is such a happy one year old and she thoroughly enjoyed her party. We look forward to many more birthdays in the future!
Thank you, Seana, for sharing Madeline’s party celebration with us – we are so completely inspired! And, a big Happy Birthday to Madeline from all of us at Smock!
Our first Smock Real Party feature is particularly near and dear to my heart because the party was none other than my very own bridal shower! Hosted last month by my incredible bridesmaids, we shared an amazing day of great food, even greater friends and amazing sunshine. What more could a girl ask for? And to be perfectly honest, the lovely women in my life far surpassed any expectations I could have had and then some. It was a truly wonderful and memorable day.
I will admit that it was a bit awkward for me to be banished from helping with shower preparations. I am very much hands on when it comes to social occasions and being on board to help with baking, cooking and logistics, but this time I wasn’t allowed to know anything aside from where and when to be. Upon arriving a few minutes before the other guests, the first thing I noticed were huge trays of cupcakes and tons of white roses. Two of my favorite things in life? Cupcakes and white roses. I knew right then and there it was going to be a great day.
And the food! There was such a spread of food it makes me smile just thinking about all the effort that went into creating this feast. (I am told it involved color-coded spreadsheets and the aide of Google Docs to bring it all together!) Lots of fresh fruit and miniature sandwiches, bruschetta and caprese skewers, pasta salad and cheesecake, it was sincerely the best food I’ve had since the last of the holiday cookies were eaten up this winter.
I absolutely adored the favors the girls dreamed up for all of the guests – tiny flowering plants potted in petite little terra cotta pots. During the party they served as added decor and afterward each guest had a little plant to take home to their garden. It was such a fabulous idea! Truly, no detail was forgotten. From fresh mimosas as guests arrived to little slips of paper at each seat asking each guest to impart a bit of a wisdom, it was such a special time for me to spend with the women closest to me prior to our wedding in July. Even my favorite colors, foods and flowers and my love for monograms were taken into consideration for a day that was infused with incredibly thoughtful personal details. It is certainly a day I will long remember – thank you to all of the ladies who made such an incredible day possible!
Do you have an upcoming event? A great birthday party or anniversary celebration? Email hello@smockpaper.com and we’d love to feature it on our Smock blog!
Here at Smock we get to work with some pretty cool people throwing some amazing parties, which we absolutely love. In fact we find it so much fun that we want to share those parties with everyone else! If you’re hosting a great brunch, baby or bridal shower, birthday party, anniversary celebration, or a fabulous spring kick-off barbecue, we want details! Email us at hello@smockpaper.com and tell us about your event and you could be featured on Smock’s blog. Parties of all shapes, sizes, and themes are welcome! In the meantime, check out this fabulous baby shower at the incredible Thoughtful Day, a blog we positively adore.
We love this use of our adorable Liony letterpress invitations featuring hand calligraphy by our favorite calligrapher, Debi Zeinert of Blooming Quill, in Whimsy for a first birthday party. It’s simple and oh so sweet, and the perfect way to set the stage for a fantastic birthday celebration.