We celebrated our strongman Chase’s 1st birthday with a party a few months late. We waited till we had moved into our new home and I’m so glad we did. A house doesn’t feel like home till you have company and it was such a fun day celebrating our Chase!
All of the photos were taken by Tanya- I discovered her via instagram (@tanyaprosanovsphotos) and was excited to hire her to cover the special party day! Charlotte friends check her out!
In today’s blog post I’ll share all the party details and how we pulled together the perfect strongman circus theme for Chase.
His arm rolls needed to be the focus of the day haha. Let’s dive into all the DIY and themed fun!
FOYER
This was our first party in our new house and I was so excited to decorate the foyer! (Here’s how it looks now-finally got a mirror up.) I picked out a bunch of fun balloons colors from Zurchers! That is the best party site – I shop by colors and it makes the party planning so easy. (For this garland I used their balloon colors: white, ruby red, mandarin orange and goldenrod. I had some leftover polka dot balloons and strung those up too.) I can’t live without my handy dandy balloon pump machine – it makes the garland process go so much quicker. For my garlands I just snip a little hole in the balloon tie part and string them up on balloon ribbon. We hung it down the banister and around the pillar for a fun display right when you walk in! I had grabbed a white fringe paper garland at Target and it ended up being just the right touch to wrap around the garland!
On the entry table I put a sweet baby photo of the birthday boy and a tray of the favors. I had a helium tank from a past party so we blew up some more of the balloons from Zurchers and attached them to a stack of red tickets! For the favors, I created treat bag tags in photoshop and printed/stapled them to ziploc bags of cotton candy! Sienna was my helper with that. She loves a project. :) I also got the throwback animal cracker boxes – I feel like the adults loved those the most haha.
My mom had thrifted a fun puppet show stand years ago. I had put a basket of puppets next to it. We brought it over and the kids had so much fun putting on puppet shows during the party. (I wish I had snapped some photos of that!)
THE DESSERT TABLE
As always, my favorite part of any party is the dessert table! I knew I wanted to do a strongman circus theme for our muscle man Chase, but I didn’t want to go traditional circus colors. I wanted the dessert table to feel more like behind the scenes of a circus- where the crew was! The colors were black, off white, gold and a little red. My mom is an amazing seamstress and is always working up fun projects. I had stopped by her house with fabric, an idea and a “heyyyy want to help me with something fun??? haha” and she jumped on board to help make the fabric backdrop come to life. She’s amazing! I used a cheap tension curtain rod and some command hooks to hang it up. I blew up some gold and white balloons and hung them over the top.
Over the weeks leading up to the party I had been gathering cool vintage looking circus items- like the lamp and crate from Hobby Lobby! The suitcases were a find at the store At Home. I had fun laying in different details to make the table come together. I had a gold sparkly tablecloth (off Amazon from Sophia’s Hollywood Themed Party) and I wanted to drape it down the table but…a one year old had different ideas. haha. I had to tuck it up on the table so he didn’t pull it all down. But still loved the sparkle it gave! The gold metal Balloon letters were from Michael’s and I snagged them on clearance.
For the first time I gave my Cricut a try and let’s just say I’m officially obsessed! I took photos of Chase and sent them to the Cricut…the machine cut him out and we had the cutest treat toppers! I also designed a tent/ticket topper and had it print and then cut out in our Cricut machine. I used gold paper straws (cut down to size) for the sticks of the toppers.
I bought these cute bendable balloons for the cake and I love the pop of color they gave the cake! (They are cool because you could even bend them around a little animal figure to have it hold the balloon. pretty cool Amazon find.)
The treats were all store-bought. So easy and just jazzed them up with some details. The only thing I “made” on the dessert table were the marshmallow dumbbells!
Micah man was our ring leader for the day! He took on that role very well. haha.
FOOD AND TREAT TABLE
I was so excited to use our kitchen island for more party food and treats! I wanted to have another little set up of salty and sweet treats. I had a bowl of frosted animal crackers, veggie straws, twizzlers and pretzels. We had a jar of ring pops and a bunch of different kinds of cookies!
For the decor I had gotten pirate decor from Target..these red, white and gold paper fans…but I just didn’t add the black and white skull detail. haha. They were perfect! I hung them up with balloon ribbon and just curled the ends for fun. We also had more store-bought cupcakes out and I used part of the meri meri circus toppers for these. The lions and circus dogs were so cute!
My mom had gotten the cute Ferris wheel at Home Goods years ago and spray painted it red. (for Christmas) (Here’s a similar one I found on Amazon!) The grandkids always love seeing it at her house…and I love having her a mile away to help with party details! It was the perfect touch for this circus table! My kids don’t love cupcakes that much but they LOVE candy mixes…so I put some gold cupcake liners in the Ferris wheel and filled them with mini marshmallows and skittles. Colorful and a sweet treat! I found a white ceramic elephant at the store At Home. I’m pretty sure I grabbed the popcorn containers from Hobby Lobby.
SUNROOM SPACE
Our “Circus Tent” was set up in the sunroom! I hung streamers, fans and honeycombs from the ceiling! TIP: I used a cardboard cake circle…cut out the middle and wrapped/taped the streamers around that. It made it so easy to hang it up in the middle…and then hang the streamers out to the side- taping them to the ceiling. Here’s details on the middle of the circus tent details: Spritz Gold + White Paper Fans and Spritz Tissue Honeycombs. I felt like the middle needed something fancy and they worked perfect! My kids kept going in there and looking up like woahhhh! ;)
Chase’s striped romper was from Amazon – it was a two pack! Asher had an old pirate costume from Halloween a few years back and he was so excited to wear it as his circus costume. Micah is wearing a ringleader costume that used to fit his cousin and I got Sienna an acrobat costume off Amazon! (It worked but it was a little tight in the buns- If I had planned better I would have had a tutu to wear with this to cover the bum.) Sophia and Ben wanted something more casual and comfy to wear…so I found them some fun t-shirts! Sophia had the circus staff t-shirt and Ben had the circus security t-shirt. ;) My dress was a last minute decision the day of haha – glad I had this dress in my closet. It’s actually maternity but worked!
We had some big stuffed animals in the kids’ rooms and I gathered them up to be in our circus. The Teddy Bear is from Target. The baby Giraffe is a favorite and on Amazon! The Elephant is Amazon and the Lion is from IKEA. I got some outdoor planters and painted them for a fun circus detail. They aren’t sturdy enough for kids to stand on, but Chase sat there for a few photos and the animals looked so cute on them!
A couple favorite DIY’s from the party have to be the dumbbell and the circus animals!
I made the dumbbell out of two styrofoam balls, a wooden dowel and black duck tape. Super easy and it was a hit with all of the kids. (and dads haha.) The animals were finds from Target bargain bins and Michaels. I used random craft material like gems, pipe cleaners, paper, pompoms and ribbon to make their cute outfits. :)
CAKE TIME!
The sunroom was the perfect backdrop for cake time! The photos make this party look a lot calmer than it was haha. It was really fun and loud…my kind of party!
Chase’s party was a few months past his actual birth date…but it was worth holding off for the celebration to have it in our new home. It was so nice having fam and friends with us. Grateful and excited for many more birthday celebrations in our new home!
All of my siblings and their kids were able to be here for the party!
They always bring the fun! It’s in moments like this where I’m so excited for my kids to have so many siblings of their own. The family gatherings are the best when we get all the cousins together.
On the kitchen table I filled one of my trays up with fun circus prizes + candies.
(I got this tray summers ago at Walmart)
I was going to have a rubber ducky game but we couldn’t get the ducks to float…(didn’t think that through when I bought these.) So instead the kids just had fun going to town picking out some special treats/toy to take home. The kids all loved the animal figures that I got off Amazon. The big girls helped the little kids get tattoos.
If I missed any birthday details you are curious about… just ask away in the comments!
You can also follow along the more everyday family fun going on over here via Instagram: @athomewithnatalie
