Our Little Hunny is One

It’s official. We have a one year old! I blinked, and a year had flown by! This past weekend, we celebrated Whalens 1st birthday. I chose a classic Winnie the Pooh theme.

My goal for every party is to be as immersive as possible. I want you to feel the theme everywhere you look. Whether it’s just a small piece of decor or the grand display, I want our guests to have an experience. Check out what we came up with!

Disclaimer: In order to continually bring you the best DIYs I can, I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you! Thanks for being here supporting Big Brick Beauty!

The Invite

I ordered this downloadable editable invite from etsy and was able to easily put in our event date and location. I saved this and sent it to everyone we were inviting and put it on our Facebook invite as well.

The Signage

We have a pretty long driveway that’s tree lined, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that into the theme. We made directional signs by cutting scrap 1x4s and painted them with chalkboard paint. Then, stained the other sides.

At the bottom of the driveway, we made a “Whalen’s Hundred Acre Woods” sign. In the Winnie the Pooh books, it’s common for words to be misspelled and letters to be backwards, so we ran with that when making the signs.

About half way up the driveway, we placed a sign that said “Keep Goin'”.

And finally, at the top of the driveway, a sign leading to the front door saying “That Way”.

I purchased these little cardboard cutouts from Amazon. And placed them all up the driveway.

The Decor

Throughout her first year, we took photos each month to watch her grow. I purchased this month-by-month Winnie the Pooh display banner on Amazon. And glued each month’s photos to the back.

We used these Winnie the Pooh balloon hangers in the kitchen and all over the front porch!

We put her name in balloons in the dining room.

And even included this map of the Hundred Acre Woods!

And we even had cookies made!

The Main Event

And finally, my favorite decoration! Our book page! We purchased this 10′ x 7′ backdrop book page. Then, we grabbed 2 4′ x 8′ plywood sheets from Lowes and cut these using our circular saw into an arch shape.

We laid the plywood flat on a table top and stretched the backdrop over the wood, using a staple gun to secure it to the back.

Once we had both sides assembled, we brought it inside and stood it up like an open book! We have an antique highchair, and I placed this decor kit to go on the front of it. We figured this would be where we did her smash cake and the set up did not disappoint! We used this balloon arch kit to frame out the side. 

The final detail was our little light up bees! We strung these adorable bee lights using thumbtacks from the hive across the “page” of the book! This was a super cute finishing detail that really made the page pop!

The Activities

I like to have lots of different things for the kiddos to do. We had different activities for all different ages, but my favorite was our playspace rental! If you are local, we rented from Pretty Little Play Co. I would HIGHLY recommend them to everyone with littles! So many times, the babies at the party are forgotten, and if you have several littles (ages 0-5), this is the way to go!! From start to finish, the process was a breeze. I went on their website and selected what size and color scheme I wanted. Then, you can select all the cool add-ons they have like additional hoppers or a larger ball pit. And book it. Make sure you book early! I contacted them at the beginning of September for a November 4th party, and they were technically already booked! But Jess was amazing and worked with me to get us in! They came set up the morning of the event, the kids played had a blast, and that evening, they came disassembled it all and hauled it away. It was so easy! All of the parents with littles loved having a safe space where the kids could play and having some time for themselves with free hands to grab a bite to eat!

For reference, we did the 10′ x 10′ play space in pastel.

Another activity we had was our bounce house. A while ago, Sam’s Club had a bounce house like this on sale. So we grabbed it, and it has been a great little investment. We had kiddos in it from ages 4-8 and they had a blast and it kept them entertained the entire party!

The last activity we had for the kiddos was a painting table. I got lucky and found these adorable little wooden beehives to paint at our local target! They were in the dollar spot priced at $3 but rang up only $1.50 at checkout!