First Celebrations

Back in August, we celebrated our second daughter's first birthday.

I went with a Beatrix Potter garden theme, as the girls' room is all Beatrix Potter and we are big fans of all of her precious literary endeavors. Also because I could get and grow a lot of gorgeous produce at that time of the year to keep costs down, and I'm a cheapskate like that.

So check out the adorableness of these invitations. Unashamed plug here. You have GOT to check out Shortcake's Signs custom invites and have her work something up for you. Granted, it might spoil you for anything ordinary from Vistaprint from here on out, but here's my area of choice to splurge on.

She does custom lettering in any type of font that you wish, and her drawing and art is unreal. She recreated this iconic Peter Rabbit scene for these invitations. Also, she's my sister, so that's where this degrades into pure nepotism. Believe me, it's entirely to your advantage here...




Garden parties really put themselves together for the most part. I did bring out some of the cute vintage Beatrix Potter books and toys from the girls' room, and pulled out my grandma's old lace curtains to drape the table with.

Oh, and I made labels for the food. Don't look closely at them. My sister does hand-lettering, not me. 

We tried some fascinatingly-colored carrots in the garden this year. They were all ready to be dug up and brought inside to join the festivities.

Peter Rabbit joined:

I wrapped the cutlery to resemble carrots. That was a Pinterest idea. The "carrots" didn't really match any of the other colors, and the twine I used to tie them with was too hard for the kids to access by themselves. It looked cute when I saw it online...

My husband was very skeptical when I announced I wanted to hang branches from the ceiling. So I did it myself while he was sleeping and surprised him. I think. 

We had IBC for the adults and apple juice boxes for the kids, in an old metal tub that I painted that fun seafoam color. It matched a little better than the florescent orange it used to be.

The flowers all came from our garden--lots of marigolds, zinnias, glads, and irises. Despite always having the ugliest picture in calendars, August does churn out some pretty flowers.

The food attempted to follow characters from the books: Mr. McGregor's carrot sticks, Benjamin Bunny's bunny tails, Jeremy Fisher's lettuce sandwiches, Miss Moppet's garden veggies (ok, that one was a huge stretch), Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's carrot cake, Tommy Tittlemouse's cheese and crackers, and Tom Kitten's roly-poly pudding.

I'd never made a roly-poly pudding before. But it always sounded so intriguing in the corresponding story. Turns out, it was quite popular. I did an alternate version that involved jam rather than kitten. 

For a few weeks previous, I ebayed assorted Beatrix Potter tales for the kids to take home with them. Predictably, I forgot to hand them out at the party. At least they look cute in their basket in this picture. I spent the next couple of weeks passing them out at church and mailboxes.

Hurricane Hazel kept eyeing the Amazon's ombre carrot cake, despite the two cupcakes she had already consumed. 

And here's my birthday girl really getting into it! Many happy returns, Lovie!

Thanks for checking out our Beatrix Potter garden party! I hope you enjoyed the pics and maybe found some helpful ideas for your celebrations.