Setup:
A few months back I was so bummed that we couldn't have a big party for Mr. P's first birthday like we did for his sister. I like to do things that are not mainstream or common when it comes to parties and their themes. I settled on a space theme and decided to run with celebrating Porter's "1st trip around the sun". Honestly this is one of my favorite parties I have thrown to date. It was a small and intimate gathering of only our immediate family (minus a few who had to work and live far away). It was a perfect celebration for our little man and his first year of life!
It all started with a search for invites. There was nothing that I liked that fit the colors and scheme I was looking for. Canva is one of the best free online design tools and I used that to create his party invites. From there we had a bit of a frantic text from our photographer, PicsByNic, the night before his cake smash session that the photo prop she ordered didn't come in time (thanks Covid era shipping delays). She was so good and ran out to a couple places to check for something in its place but I decided to use the images from Canva to print and make my own banner (above) since then they would match the invitation. I was so happy with the way it turned out. Of course we brought it home and that was the base for all of our decor.
The Food:
My husband Keith is a godsend when it comes to food for parties. One of his biggest hobbies in life is making and experimenting with new meat recipes that he can make in his smoker. He had been talking about a new tacos al pastor recipe and what better time to make it than for a party. Because of this we did a taco bar for the food and it was absolutely delicious- thanks honey! The tent cards for the food, I got creative with on Canva as well and used the same images from the banner and invite again. We really ran with the space theme here, because well why not! Here's a rundown of all everything we served (Earth Eats):
Mars' Munchies- cheddar Chex Mix
Ices of Uranus- ice in an ice bucket
Astronaut fuel- soda
Neptunes Nachos- tortilla chips
Pluto's Pastor Pork- Keith's smoked tacos al pastor
Saturn's Sour Cream
Orion's Onions
Telescope Tomatoes
Solar Cilantro
Sun's Salsa
Lunar Lettuce
Celestial Cheeses- assorted cheeses
Big Dipper Beans- refried beans
Rocket Rice- my Oma's Spanish rice recipe
Fruit (which I obviously neglected to give a fun name to)
Galaxy Bars- Rice Krispie treats
Asteroids- cake bites (cake pops with no sticks)
Commander's Cake
One of the other fun things that I love to do for my kids parties is make their cakes. Leona always helps me and I am no professional but they always turn out so cute! Its a fun memory I have with them and I hope one they will remember as they get older! I found these fun lights to put around it to really make a wow factor. Truth be told, I made two cakes. The second one I made however fell apart instantly when I took it out of the pan. Let me be honest, not just fell apart, crumbled. So I just embraced it and make cake pops.. except I realized I didn't have sticks for them either LOL. They became cake bites and danggg were they good!
The Decor:
My favorite part of it all was the decor that we put together. My biggest tip for party decor is to check Amazon and the Dollar Tree because they have the best items for themed parties and for cheap. Look at how stunning it turned out! The banners on the fireplace were each from the Dollar Tree. I purchased one blue and one orange and then decided to interchange every other one so they were both blue and orange instead of one fully blue and one fully orange. I also picked up some sliver plastic wear from the Dollar Tree to fit the theme, the "1" balloon, and the blue disposable table cloth.
All of the balloons including the rocket ship and astronaut came in the balloon garland pack from Amazon. This did not disappoint! I will probably never throw another party without a balloon garland. It was such a wow factor for an affordable price and made for great photos! I assembled it with some help from Keith. The worst part was blowing up all the balloons. We did that first and were swimming in balloons. It was an adventure but once we started it started flowing nicely. It was not hard to put together just tedious. I would do it again a thousand times because it was just so perfectly beautiful! It comes with easy to follow instructions and the best balloon tying gadget you have ever seen.
I also showcased all of his milestone pictures. To me, I love seeing them all in one place printed out because it captures his growth. For these, I had extra planets and prints from the banner I made. I simply used those and used my trusty Cricut to whip up some numbers. Again, small project but HUGE impact.
Lastly, another fun thing we have done now for both of our kiddos first birthday parties is get a book and have all of the guests sign it. It has been such a fun thing to pull out and read with Leona and it reminds us of her special 1st birthday celebration. Now we have the same for Porter. Running with the space theme of course, I found the book "The Way Back Home" by Oliver Jeffers. It is such a sweet story that we will also now get to pull out and remember Porter's special day.
Outfit Details and Links:
My Nasa shirt: Amazon
Keith's Pluto shirt: Amazon
Porter's space sweatshirt: Target (looks like its sold out online-check your local Target clearance racks)
Leona's shirt: made with my Cricut, shirt from The Dollar Tree
Balloon Garland: Amazon
"The Way Back Home" book: Amazon
We had such a wonderful time celebrating. I hope this gave you some inspo for your own space themed or 1st trip around the sun party too!
Comment below with your favorite part!
xoxo
Maria Elizabeth