This past weekend, we celebrated my dear friend’s daughter’s first birthday! Little baby Elaina came on Labor Day last year (oh the irony!) and has grown into such a little cutie with an adorable smile! To honor and acknowledge her Korean culture (she’s half-Korean, half-Chinese), a Dol celebration was in order! Elaina’s mama got a little DIY herself and made the Dol towers out of white and black beans. One tower says “Happy First Birthday” and the other is Elaina’s name in Korean. How cool is that?
Purple and aqua were the party colors and were sprinkled throughout the event. I love the idea of using just colors as your “party theme” because it makes party planning a cinch! And luckily, these two colors are very popular right now thanks to the mermaid trend.
It was such a joy to help my friend, Anna, with party decorations! She told me the items she needed and gave me total creative license in the design. A designer’s dream!
A traditional component of a Korean first birthday party is the Doljabi, where the child is placed in front of several objects and whichever one he/she selects will predict her future! The guests were asked to cast their vote so I created a little sign to go along with the game. And of course, a first birthday party must-have is the one year poster listing all the special favorites and milestones. Again, I used the trick of printing this custom design as a color engineering print and taped it onto a foam board bought from the dollar store. The color quality was great too!
Michaels had a cardstock value pack in the party colors so it made paper decorations super easy to coordinate! From the “Happy 1st Birthday” pennant banner to the smash cake and cupcake toppers. I added a little gold glitter on some of the cupcake toppers for a little sparkle…it’s a little girl’s birthday party after all! I also learned a new craft that I’ll for sure be making again for another party…tissue paper pom pom toppers! A tutorial for that will be on the blog later this month.
The smash cake topper was a tricky project but so glad I put on my MacGuyver thinking cap on and made it work! In order to replicate the style of the topper I made for my own daughter’s smash cake, I needed to find a way to make the sans serif letters on “elaina” and “one” stand on their own versus being connected to the letters before/after. For example, I could easily have the letter “e” of “elaina” touch the letter next to it (“l”) but it would not look right if I connected the letter “i” of “Elaina” to the letter “a” in front of it or the letter “n” after it. Luckily, I was able to “weld” the word “turns” with the word “one” at the bottom of the topper but the word “elaina” was still a challenge. So how did I do it? I glued the letters of “elaina” to a small clear acetate sheet. Then, I added two skinny “pillars” of acetate sheet behind the word “turns” and connected the two acetate sheets. You can kind of see it behind the “s” in “turns”. This created the illusion that the letters on the topper were “floating”! #crafthacksFTW
Little Elaina was surrounded by so many family members and friends. She might have been a little overwhelmed with all the excitement and overstimulation! But sorry sweet girl, it’s because you are so loved! Happy birthday Elaina!