Woodland One-derland First Birthday Party

Hip hip hooray! We celebrated a first birthday last weekend and it was one-derful! Since our baby boy was born in the most glorious season of all – FALL – and because we brought him home from the hospital in a cute little outfit with a fox on it, we chose a woodland animal theme. So here you have it. Here is the complete Woodland One-derland First Birthday Party done Mountain style.

To start, I ordered this adorable invitation from Sweet Bee Design Shoppe on Etsy. She was wonderful to work with and even made some cupcake toppers & favor tags to match. Thank you, Sweet Bee!

Next, I doodled on this arrow chalkboard sign to greet guests at the door.

For tablescaping I found this 18″x 48″ moss mat at Joann Fabrics.

I cut it in half widthwise to make two 9″ pieces that were 4′ long when placed end-to-end down the middle of the table on top of white linens. Sitting on the moss were a few cute little woodland creatures (also from Joann Fabrics) that my mom was kind enough to pick up for me.

They were joined by acorns, twigs and pine cones the kids and I had collected in our yard and on nature walks. This was probably my favorite thing about this party – all the supplies we found in nature to decorate! It was ~~cheap~~ budget-friendly and for this theme, it worked perfectly!

The kids and I also collected smooth rocks on our outdoor adventures. I painted them red and added a few white polka dots. Come back for a tutorial about that soon! They turned out perfectly as whimsical mushrooms – or Super Mario Brothers decor. You decide!

Since it’s fall a few gourds, pumpkins, and Indian corn made it into the tablescape as well.

Now onto more important things – cake! Or in this case, cake AND cupcakes. Did I mention it’s fall? Because pumpkin. All things PUMPKIN, including cupcakes! I followed this recipe from Cheryl at TidyMom.net and made some seriously delicious pumpkin spice cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream frosting. To. die. for. The cupcakes showed off their adorable toppers as they sat atop wooden crates.

The pièce de résistance however was the double tiered dark chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling and vanilla buttercream icing. Come again? Yes, you heard me. I can’t even. This cake is a home run each and every time I make it…which is a lot… You can find the tried and true recipe here.

After the cake had been iced I adorned it with the oh-so-cute-and-teensy-tiny cake topper you see up there. You can find the FREE printable you need to make a cake topper of your very own in this post: DIY O-N-E Bunting Cake Topper.

You may have noticed the cake was sitting on a perfectly woodland cake stand. Love it? You can DIY it too! Check out how to make it one like it here: DIY Woodland Cake Stand.

Next up at our Woodland One-derland was some fun for the kiddos. Because after you stuff them full of cake, what a better idea than to give them sharp pencils and glitter glue?! Haha! But I digress – in going with our theme, I wanted our favors to encourage the little ones to explore their outdoor surroundings. So here’s what each little friend went home with:
– Nature tracking journal
– Twig pencil
– Owl eraser (from Target)
– Their own hand-designed binoculars (tutorial coming soon!)