Our children's book-themed birthday party

Hey all, long time, no see. I wanted to jump on ye olde blog just to post about the picture-book birthday party I threw for my little one's first birthday. Because I did a lot of "Google research" using other people's Pinterest pins and blogs for inspiration and ideas, I thought I'd give back by way of making my own blog post. I hope it's helpful to those of you looking to put together a book-themed party of your own!

Invitations

I wanted my invitations to look like library book cards, which I had seen others do on a few blogs. I found a free download here of a library card, and I used a very old version of InDesign to add create the final version. I found the fonts I wanted here. 

Decorations

My favorite part of the decorations was the banner I made from old book pages. I used books that started out in pretty rough shape, which I had already used to decorate my son's room anyway. These books will not go to waste! From the photo, it's probably fairly obvious how I did it. I created a two templates: one bigger, one smaller, and then I cut out the pages. I hole-punched them along the tops and used baker's twine to connect them into a banner and hang it from the ceiling. I was quite happy with how it turned out. 

Along with that, we had a few other odds and ends proclaiming a first birthday. And I taped photos along the wall showing baby boy as he grew through each month. Several people remarked on the photo wall. 

I also used crafting Scrabble tiles as decorations on the table, and I used books as decorations around the room. 

Food

My dad and stepmom were a big help for the cooking. My stepmom came over to help with the birthday boy while I baked the day before.

I made cupcakes and attempted to decorate them to look like Llama Llama's bedspread (not sure that was recognized as such though). 

We made "Green Eggs and Ham" deviled eggs, which were quite delicious. Husband did most of the work on that, although my dad actually did the hard-boiling, which was sooo helpful. 

I made chocolate chip cookies ("If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"), my sister made puppy chow ("Clifford"), and I cut up some fruit ("The Very Hungry Caterpillar"). We also had store-bought macaroni salad ("Strega Nona") and Goldfish crackers ("One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish"). 

Activities/Games

When everyone entered, they were greeted with a book to sign, plus a book swap box to drop any used books they might have brought per the invitation. As people left, we encouraged them to take a book or two from the box, which we had also stocked beforehand with extra books from our Little Free Library. Some of the guests enjoyed the swap, I think.

We had two games: one for any kids who had come and one for adults and kids alike. We played the game for everyone first, and I think it ended up being really fun. It was played like the "forehead game." If you've seen "The Office," you might be familiar with it. In our version, I took images from children's books and taped them to everyone's back. Each person had to ask others yes-or-no questions to try to guess which book was on their back. Then they had to find their partner, as each book had two images out among the crowd. The first team to find each other won. Not everyone initially wanted to play, but a little cajoling convinced them, and everyone ended up having a lot of fun being forced to mingle. 

The second game was "pin the hat on the cat." My husband is ridiculously good at drawing, in my opinion, and he was happy to draw a hatless cat for me. I printed off some Cat-in-the-Hat hats and had them ready on the table for the kids who came to color. We didn't end up having as many kids come to the party as were originally expected, so it was just my nephews who played the game. But it worked well, and I'm still pretty proud of that freehand drawing. 

Favors

As silly as it is, these are probably what I'm most proud of. I spray-painted the tops of baby food jars and hot-glued these Hungry Caterpillar counting toys to the tops. The hot glue didn't hold as well as I expected, though it worked well enough for the purpose. I'm sure there are probably glues that would have held better, though. 

I created little labels saying, "Caterpillar food," cut them out using a 2-inch hole punch, and then filled the jars with Runts candy, because it looks like fruit. Probably the most challenging part of this party was finding enough Runts for the amount of people I was expecting. Others might want to try filling them with fruit snacks instead. For the very young, I included a few filled with Trix cereal. :)

FUN!

OK, I'm going out of my way to not really share anything too personal about my little guy here, but he had a wonderful time. He was surrounded by friendly faces and enveloped in love. He enjoyed his cupcake, for the most part, and he actually did get into opening his gifts. He received a wagon, a little comfy chair just his size, and many toys and books. In the days following the party, he has loved playing with it all, and we are so grateful for everyone who came and gave of their time to be there, as well as those who gave gifts. You are all a blessing!