{The Party}

Benjamin's first birthday party was a small affair with just a few close family & friends, but I still wanted to make it cute & fun of course! 

We went with a monkey theme, since he's our "little monkey", and I kind of went a bit mad with balloons - I ordered 100 and strung them up all over the house! In fact they are still up now, I can't bear to take them down because B loves them so much! 

The lovely SJ made us some super cute invitations featuring an adorable little monkey with a cupcake - what's not to love?!

 Here are a few of the party details: 

1. Those balloons - I used an idea I'd seen on Pinterest and blew them up then threaded them onto a piece of thread and hung them all over the place! It worked great! I love that they aren't in your way on the floor, and no helium required - win! I will definitely be using this idea oevr & over again. 

2. The cake. The all important first birthday cake. I admit, I was nervous. I don't bake a lot, although I would like to. The cake was pretty simple really - a chocolate sponge with chocolate butter icing. I cut a alither away from the top semi-circle to give it shape, then added rolled icing for the face. The hair is made of matchsticks, the ears are jaffa cakes, the eyes are buttons and the nose chocoate coated raisins. I love how it turned out! 

3. I strung up all of Benjamin's monthly photos using little chalk hearts to mark the months. It was great to see them all together like that, so this series will definitely be making it's way onto a layout soon (if I can figure how to get 13 photos onto a page, maybe it'll have to be the first double I've done in years!).

4. A monkey party just wouldn't be complete without bananas. Both the fruit and the sweetie kind!

5. Just in case anyone wondered what flavour the quiche was, or which cheese was which I made little food flags for the buffet table. Quick, easy and effective. 

6. I can't claim to have made the napkins, but they were cute lol!

Finally to commemorate the little man turning one, we had a print made, again by SJ - see how well it coordinates with the invitation? Love that! These are a few of Benjamin's favourites at the tender age of 1. I would love to do something similar each birthday, it's such a nice reminder. 

If you love this, you can have of your own! SJ does Likes prints for individuals, families, and also family values prints. Great for birthdays, christmas or just because. Any age goes - I'm tempted to do one for myself! Take a look at her shop here.