Wintery Rainbow 1st Birthday Party

I came up with the wintery rainbow theme for Leyna’s party after falling in love with all the beautiful rainbow parties I’ve seen online the last year. I loved the idea of brightening up a party in the middle of winter with lots of fun colors.

I hired Charlotte from The Paper Cupcake to design the invitations (which featured Leyna’s cake smash pictures that we took on her actual birthday, December 28th) and all the printables for the party. She really helped me set the tone from the beginning.

We had the party at our house, which made for some chaos the morning of and a huge mess to clean up after, but it actually wasn’t that bad having it here.

This front door sign was made with this wooden plaque I ordered from Etsy. I painted it with chalkboard paint and taped ribbon on to the back. Then my sister prettied it up with some chalk markers. Super easy, and now I can just take off the ribbon, wipe off the chalk and repurpose it.

The cupcake stand is one I’ve repurposed since I made it nearly 3 years ago for Kendall’s 1st birthday party. The wreath above the fireplace is our Christmas felt pomp wreath that I added rainbow ribbon to. The picture collage on the fireplace is made from a canvas that’s painted with chalkboard paint. The pictures are stuck on with adhesive photo corners, and we used chalk markers to draw snowflakes on it.

The giant Polaroid photo booth was a huge hit! The kids loved playing with all the funky accessories, and I think even the adults had a good time pretending to bundle up (even though it was nearly 60 outside and I had the AC blasting).

I got my inspiration for this after seeing a pin from this blog, but had no idea how they made the frame. With the help from some reader suggestions, I wound up getting a giant piece of foam insulation from Home Depot for $9, had Scott cut it with a box cutter, and we painted it white. The dimensions were 3.5 feet wide x 4.25 feet long. There is a .2 foot border on each side, a .25 foot border on top, and a .875 foot border on bottom.

Scott hung it from our ceiling with fishing line, a few feet away from the yellow chevron fabric backdrop I got at Hancock Fabrics.

For favors, the kids got Snow Day Survival Kits full of popcorn, hot chocolate, crayons, stickers and notepads. (The babies got packs of Boogie Wipes for those inevitable runny noses.)

We also handed out these beautiful and sooooo delicious rainbow snowflake sugar cookies, courtesy of Cookies By Becky . I don’t know how she got them to look so perfectly frosted and managed to ship them without a single one breaking, but I looked like a regular ol’ Martha Stewart handing them out… until I admitted I had nothing to do with their creation.

The party was 2 hours of total fun, and I’m so happy we had it here… even if it did take a whole day to clean up after it. OH! One more thing. I don’t have a picture of this, but we made the most kick-ass white hot chocolate and let the adults add rum to their cups. Magically delicious, y’all.

1.75 gallons milk
2 bags white chocolate chips
Melt in stock pot on the stove slowly, pour into coffee urn or keep on low on the stove to keep warm.
Optional- top with rum and/or whipped cream.
Serves- a shitton of people

(We have a ton left over, so we froze it in muffin tins and then put the cubes in freezer bags. Now we can pull a few out, pop them in the microwave and enjoy.)

That’s it! Thanks for stopping by to have a look. As much fun as I had doing this party for Leyna, I’m really thinking we might do a birthday outing over a party for Kendall’s 4th in May (OMG MY BABY IS GOING TO BE FOUR).

Becky is going to give a lucky one of you 2 dozen cookies, too! All you have to do is comment telling me your favorite design she has listed in her Etsy shop right now (though you’re not limited to those if you order from her since she does custom designs, too). U.S. shipping addresses only, please. I’ll draw the winner with Random.org in about a week.

The cookie giveaway is closed. Congrats to Emily, commenter #91, as chosen by Random.org!

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