birthday box and baby felt feathers

I crammed a few things from Olivia's birthday party in to this Martha Stewart shadow box and I love it! I'll never forget my first child's first birthday party. I threw it at the last minute, 1.5 days before we left for Europe. I was cray-cray.

oh and on the topic of Martha Stewart, you might not know this but once upon a time (a couple years ago) one of her producers contacted me about doing a project on the show (like one of the guest crafters). well she didn't like my initial ideas or whatever, and I was teaching full time so I didn't have the time to come up with some alternate ideas and just said screw it. It might not have helped that I kept spelling Martha's last name STUART. smart Katie. are you the only person in the world who doesn't know how to spell her name??? embarassing.  the producer wasn't getting any of my emails at first because I was sending them to @marthstuart.com instead of @marthastewart.com (she told me this during an interview). DUH!

I interject with this side note because now every time I right martha stewart I have to think about whether its the right spelling or not! okay, back to the post:

A few weeks ago a friend of mine ordered a baby version of the felt feather headband, which I had never made before (no one has ever requested it). wellllll I had olivia model it (but couldn't get a good picture since the girl would NOT stand still) and I was TOTALLY in love! Why haven't I made these for babies before??? I need to make one for olivia pronto! anyway, just thought I would share the photos that sort of show it (the rest are blurry). oh and olivia is wearing her homemade grits dress, which I LOVE!

a first birthday.

For my daughter Olivia's first birthday, I decided to keep it simple with an "O" theme (Olivia turned One). I had lots of "O's" to reinforce the theme (sooooooo easy).
I tried my hand at making one of those stuffed letters like at anthro... the "O" is not the easiest one to start with... I would have made a tute if it had looked better...

the pretty flowers and party favors..

The ex-baby food jars were filled with lifesavers, gummy o's and fruit loops. lots of O's to eat! To make the jars I spray painted the lids and hot glued the little circles on top. I put some press n' seal in between the cap and the food so no paint particles would ever touch the food.

For the birthday cake (which looks nice an lopsided here) I cut out photos from each month of her first year and put them around in chronological order. a whole lot of cuteness for one little cake! I did a similar cake for my husband last valentine's day...

 We took photos in front of the "O" back drop (that's Olivia with her aunt Jessica).

 we decorated dOnuts...

and finally we played "pin the O on Olivia's nose!"

And the birthday girl had a whooooole lot of fun.

Look out for a birthday hat tutorial coming soon!