I’d never planned to throw a birthday party when my daughter, Kira, turned one couple months ago. We did plan to celebrate her first anniversary with our family. My parents, my brothers and my husband’s sisters. When we counted the numbers of our family, I was a bit surprised. Turned out the guests would be around 20 persons.

I thought well this would be like a mini party. So, I started to think about a few gimmicks to give a little special feel for us and the guests. So, this is how I prepared my daughter’s first anniversary celebration.

Theme

Yes it was a little party but it would be nice if we had a theme or at least a color theme. I picked orange for the main color, simply because Kira’s full name is Kirana Langit Jingga (Jingga means orange), and I really didn’t have much time to pick any unique theme because the I only had 4-5 days to prepare.

Goodie Bags

We have 5 nieces, 1 nephew, 1 little cousin. So, I needed to prepare at least eight goodie bags. I didn’t really favor cartoon theme goodie bag, so I went to Pasar Mayestik and bought brown paper bag instead (Rp. 12.000/dozen) and wrote the name of each kid with crayon on one side and ‘number one’ on the other side.  I planned to replace the white rope handle with braided wool strings, but had no time to do it.

Free Printable Supplies

Internet and those generous bloggers are my saviors. I visited Tom Kat Studio and downloaded their printable chevron circles and flags for plastic cups and cakes, and their mini bunting for the birthday cake. Then I downloaded the printable paper bunting from Ruffled.

I also downloaded printable paper dolls from various sources for kids activities.  And I put one of the doll on the guest thumbprint.

Thumbprint

I loved this thumbprint guest book idea here so I made one. It’s easy, you only need watercolor paint, paper and a pen if you want to draw it by yourself. I didn’t really have the time to think and draw, so I just paint half part of the paper orange and yellow. Then I just glued one of the paper dolls and draw a few strings. I asked each guests to leaf their thumb with watercolor paint. Do not forget to provide a glass of water so the guest can clean their thumb easily.

Photo Display

We thought it would be cute to display some of our Instagram photos of Kira. Instead of using a board, I used a hoop and lace bands. I only had white hoop. The hoop is actually a part of our IKEA bed canopy. I bought the lace bands at Toko Maju, Pasar Mayestik for Rp3000-Rp5000/meter.