I’ve been slow on putting together posts on Jemma’s first birthday. No one ever told me how SAD it can be when your baby turns one. Well, actually, I guess maybe “bittersweet” is a better word to describe it. I’m so happy we made it to one year, so proud of how she’s growing, but mourning that the time we have with her while she is a little baby is gone so quickly.
ANYWAY, enough of my whining. We didn’t have a big enough place to host a big party, and Seattle weather isn’t great enough for us to commit to an outdoor party, so we decided just to have a small family dinner. I went with a honey-themed party, since at one year of age, babies can finally eat honey! The honey theme kind of morphed into an abstract Winnie-the-Pooh theme along the way, but whatever. We put up some decorations, cooked dinner and desserts, and that was that. I’ll share some of the DIYs and recipes below for those who are interested.
Decorations – DIY paper garland
The tassel garland and “one” gold balloon are from Target. But the paper lantern/pom pom/honeycomb garland was a DIY. I bought the assorted pom poms, lanterns, and fans in a pack of off Amazon for less than $13. There are tons of similar assorted packs with various color schemes. My garland used all 16 pieces in the set and spanned across the width of a fireplace mantle, so you’ll want even more paper decorations for a longer garland. Paper pom poms can very easily be DIYed from some tissue paper. If you’d like to give it a try, Martha Stewart has a great tutorial. However, I figured if I wanted multiple colors, it’d be better for me just to buy the Amazon pack than buy multiple packs of tissue paper that I would never use up.
Materials:
- assorted paper lanterns, pom poms, fans, and honeycomb balls
- string
- command hooks or other hanging fixture
Instructions:
- Set up your command hooks where you’d like to hang your garland and tie string on either end.
- Start tying paper decorations onto the string, starting with the larger pieces. I recommend placing one large piece in the middle of your string, then alternating putting pieces on the left and right halves of your string to ensure your garland is even.
- Alternate placing your decorations below and above the string. Pom poms and fans resting on top of the string can be taped or tied upside down, supported by larger pieces hanging below.
- Fill in spaces with smaller decorations.
The Menu
Obviously all our food had to have honey in it, given our “honey” theme. We prepared an apple walnut salad with a homemade honey balsamic dressing, my instant pot char siu ribs, and lavender cupcakes with honey whipped cream for dessert.
If you’ve never made salad dressing before, it’s super easy. Just do 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. I added honey and some salt until I liked the taste.
The char siu ribs is my own recipe, a spin on my grandmother’s char siu. I also made up the lavender cupcake recipe kind of on a whim. The flavor was great but the texture wasn’t perfect, so I’m not ready to share it just yet. If you’re dying to give it a try, make my matcha butter cake recipe with the following variations:
- Omit matcha from recipe
- Before making cupcakes, heat the milk in the microwave until steaming. Steep 1.5 tsp of dried lavender in the warm milk for 20 minutes. Discard lavender.
- Add zest from half a lemon to the wet ingredients.
The honey whipped cream is just a ratio of one cup heavy whipping cream to 2 tbsp sugar, whipped into stiff peaks. Then add as much honey as you like for taste and drizzle more honey on top after piping. For the fondant bees, you can check out this Youtube video. I actually had meant to use Bravetart’s honey italian buttercream, but I had a baking fail when I tried to take it out of the fridge and reheat it for piping. Oh well.
Jemma’s Smash Cake
For Jemma’s smash cake, I wanted to make something a little healthier than the typical birthday cake. The recipe is the Kitchn’s yogurt and olive oil honey cake and the frosting is literally just greek yogurt with some honey mixed in (that’s why it looks a little lumpy). I was inspired by Cococakeland to do the little Winnie the Pooh tsum tsum face out of fondant.
In the end, Jemma wanted Jeremy to spoon feed her the cake anyway, thus eliminating the whole “smash” part of the “smash cake.” And then she only ate like three bites. I guess birthday cakes are typically sweet and unhealthy for a reason.
Jemma’s Birthday Outfit
You may have already seen that I posted a little DIY for the felt birthday crown. It would work equally well for adults, stuffed animals, and maybe even pets, so if you liked how it looked, definitely go check it out!
Her dress is from one of my favorite kids’ clothing shops: Kate Quinn Organics. They are a small company located in Bothell, WA. I love that their clothes have lots of neutral, unisex colors without big brand names and logos all over them. Plus, they use modal fabric, which is the absolute softest fabric I’ve ever felt.
And that’s it! We were so busy with party prep, that we totally forgot to buy her a present. Oh well, not like she would notice anyway. Aaaand we forgot to take a family photo. Doh! Do you guys have any good birthday party traditions? Let me know because I need to be better prepared for next year.