Speaking of parties, this past weekend was my son's FIRST birthday party! Since he's a Pisces, I went with a fishing/nautical theme (it seems I'm not going to get over this theme anytime soon, but yes, he will be allowed to pick his own theme once he can talk). And since it was his very first birthday ever, I went a little bit overboard (ha!).

The cheese spread featured an armada of ships made from newspaper papier-mache with felt sails - an unfinished holiday project of mine that happened to fit right in as-is! I made the cheese labels ahead of time to avoid spending the party answering cheese questions. All you have to do is find a fun font, print it on fun paper, and glue it to a food pick with some white glue. I laminated these with a Xyron to keep them from getting greasy.

I made adult and kid punches in simple large jars and named them on theme - "Full Steam Ahead" is really just this Lemon Drop Champagne Punch, and "No Wake" was fresh-squeezed orange-lemonade, but the funny names got people in the spirit (literally). I made label stickers with a Xyron and slapped them right on the glass. All surfaces were draped with inexpensive netting from Save-on-crafts.com and scattered with ocean artifacts like starfish, driftwood, and sea glass from Jamali Garden Supply.

For every birthday party I throw, I make these little swizzle-stick favors featuring the guest of honor. All you need a is a wallet-sized photo, a craft punch, some store-bought swizzle sticks, and some hot glue. So simple, but people get a huge kick out of them.

In order to avoid completely overwhelming myself, I concentrated on crafting an atmosphere (my forte) and left baking for a crowd (not my forte) to the professionals - I had to share these, because talk about craftsmanship!:

Tiny (quarter-sized!) cupcakes in 11 varieties from Baked by Melissa - guests could try one of each!

They come neatly arranged in a pizza box - cute!

Click through the gallery below for more details. A great time was had by all, especially the birthday boy! Happy spring parties!

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2 A small, simple, and inexpensive cake from Whole Foods, just for blowing out candles. I asked them to "put some fish on it" and they went above and beyond!

3 I carried around the guest of honor in my soda.

4 Cousin Adam selects cheese brought in by tiny ships

5 Large balloons make kids of all ages happy - these were from BalloonsFast.com

6 Tiny home means setting up a dessert table on the kitchen sink, but no one seemed to mind.

7 Cupcake Key

8 The mantle, decorated with everything nautical I could find! Ships wheel and fishing floats from Save-on-Crafts.com.

9 The cake after a certain one-year-old got to it.

10 Happy cake hands!

Tags: birthday, birthday party, boats, celebration, crafts, decoration, fish, labels, nautical, party
Posted by Kirsten Earl on March 6, 2012 in Celebrate