I was really torn on what type of theme to have for Noah's 1st birthday party. I couldn't decide between Paul Frank or teddy bears. I had lots of ideas already for both, but ultimately I decided to go with Paul Frank after being inspired by these striped straws that I found at T.J. Maxx.
A few years ago, Target had an entire line of Paul Frank party supplies. Of course, this was at a time I didn't need them and now that I did, Target no longer sold them. So I resorted to buying a lot of items on eBay or simply looking for items that looked Paul Frank-esque. These straws, with their fun characters at the ends, fit the bill.
I made these thank you tags on my computer and used some baking twine to tie them to all the party favors.
Mason jars are very trendy right now, and I knew I wanted them for Noah's party to display the straws. I also put chalkboard labels on each jar so everyone could write their name and keep track of their own drink.
Every Paul Frank sign you see in these photos was made by me on my computer and printed on card stock.
I also found some striped ceramic bowls and popcorn boxes from T.J. Maxx that, to me, looked very Paul Frank-ish.
I filled the ceramic bowls with red Swedish fish and some individually wrapped Toblerone candies that spelled out the word "one" - perfect for Noah's 1st birthday party!
Again I had to improvise a little by placing some Paul Frank stickers I found at Target on the boxes.
Initially I wanted to buy some gourmet popcorn from Peterbrooke to place in the boxes, but found that that was simply far too expensive. So John and I found chocolate covered kettle corn from BJ's Wholesale for about $4 for a giant bag. We only had to buy two to fill all 24 boxes, whereas one $10 bag of Peterbrooke popcorn could only fill one box.
The party favors were also accompanied by these little Paul Frank candy mint tins that I happen to find at JoAnn Fabrics. There were $3.99 each, but I kept using 40% and 50% off coupons to purchase them. It was a bit tedious collecting them because I only got so many coupons at a time, but I purchased enough of them to make the table settings look complete.
I found these red and white striped napkins on clearance at Target for $0.97 for a pack of 100. Perfect!
During the initial planning stages of Noah's party, I envisioned having these GIGANTIC balloons. I found these 36-inch balloons from Party City for $11.99 for a pack of 12.
Blowing up these balloons was quite the feat. First of all, we had to call several places to check for pricing. The first place we called, The Party Shop, was going to charge us $10 a balloon to blow them up. Um, no thank you. So then we called Publix and they were only going to charge us $3 each. OK!
It took us two cars and two trips to transport the balloons, but we made it!
John and I joked that Noah would have surely floated away if he'd been holding all the balloons. They were THAT heavy. Even when I was holding them I felt like I could have flown away.
Part of having a lack of Paul Frank party supplies readily available to purchase meant I had to be creative and improvise. So I made these Paul Frank iced sugar cookies.
Yes, I made them, and I wanted to everyone to know that because I worked SO hard on them.
I did not, however, have to make the cake. A coworker of mine bakes cakes on the side and made this fondant cake for Noah. The flavor - french vanilla with Nutella filling - yum!
Again, I had to improvise a lot with the decorations so I used some Paul Frank things I already had around the house. What you see here is a Paul Frank blanket my sister-in-law made for Noah that I used as a tablecloth and a Paul Frank doll that my friend Katherine gave Noah when he was born. I also made a collage of Noah's monthly photos and decorated it with Paul frank stickers. If you look closely, he's also wearing Paul Frank clothes in a couple of the photos. It's all in the details!
And a Paul Frank pillow sat in his high chair.
This banner I found on Ebay for $5.
We sang Happy Birthday once, but blew out candles twice. One for his big cake and one for his "smash cake."
We decided to get a cupcake for Noah's smash cake so it would be small enough for him to eat. We bought this one from Sweet by Holly, my absolute FAVORITE place to get cupcakes, and they custom decorated it for an extra $3 so this cupcake cost about $6 - better than buying a whole new cake!
And Noah of course enjoyed it!
A couple other little details - we had music playing so I made sure that my Paul Frank cover was on my iPod.
And my Mom and I wore Paul Frank watches. My watch (on the left) I've had for years. The watch my Mom is wearing is actually the one that came with my McDonald's Happy Meal from a couple years ago. (Yes, I got a Happy Meal just so I could get the Paul Frank toy. I actually regret not going their multiple times so I could collect them all!)
A side note on what I'm wearing - I knew I wanted to wear a Paul Frank shirt to match Noah, but John and my family were such good sports that they also wore Paul Frank clothes to match.
