I’m so excited to share about Blake’s 1st birthday party, Peter Rabbit theme’d!!!! This birthday party was one of my favourite events that we’ve hosted. Especially because it’s location was where we will soon call home. Literally in our back yard! (Our house is being built over to the right of this set up.) You might recognize the little creek that my kids have been playing in all summer, if you follow me on Instagram. A little boat race down the creek for the kids was a must.. more about that later. So what inspired the Peter Rabbit theme? Blake has a little bunny blanket that he carries around everywhere, which always reminds me of Peter Rabbit. The whole garden/outdoor theme was perfect for a summer celebration!  We’ve been out in our own garden a lot lately and the kids have just loved learning about how fruits and veggies grow. I’ve incorporated all these little details into his first birthday party. It really told the story of the summer of 2019 and Blake’s first year of life!

The willow tree is one of my favourite parts of our new yard. Having a kid’s birthday under the willow tree was one of the first things I thought of when we walked around the property before it was ours. It felt right out of a story book. The set up might “look” quite elaborate, but this party really had a low key vibe. Everything was quite simple, with lots of easy DIY’s and elements that we built with the intention to use them at future events. Read more about these at the bottom of this post. I really do love the idea of building props and tables for years to come, makes the time and money spent worth while. We previously picked up the picnic tables from our local hardware store and Troy assembled them when our family was over for a fire.  Moving them by the willow tree turned out to be a great idea as now we use them even more often, I just need to paint them white! We made a simple table cloth with a fun striped fabric from our local fabric store. The most exciting part was the tassel umbrellas and chairs that we now sell at Monika Hibbs Home!

Make sure to watch the video below of the entire day too!
All Photography by Kristy & Ken of Blush Wedding Photography. 

The day was perfect. The hardest part was really just getting everything to the property, since we don’t live there yet. You really have to think about everything when you host a park-like birthday party. From water, to food, balloons, decor and all the little things in between. All the little gardening elements were my favourite part. Most of the items you see I found in our props closet, which made it super easy to throw together too. I always recommend to invest in cake plates, water jugs, wooden crates, vases, serving ware… you’ll notice I bring them out for every party. A little something always gets added from each event which just builds your entertaining collection, making each party a setup breeze!

I love how the garden theme was further enhanced with the food, highlighting our love for fresh fruits and veggies. The team and our friends at White Table Catering always do such a beautiful job with their food presentation. And the sandwiches tasted incredible! How adorable are the hand painted sugar cookies and mini carrot cakes in jars. I can always count on The Cake Mama to create the most ideal desserts for my party themes. (You might remember her delicious treats at Lillya’s outdoor lunch for her church dedication. See the post here.)

This antique high chair will always hold a special place in my heart. Each one of our kids sat in it on their first birthdays! Have a peek at Liam’s NY Bistro 1st Birthday & Lillya’s Swan Lake 1st Birthday parties.  We purchased that chair off our local craigslist just before Liam was born.

I always like to incorporate books into my kid’s birthday party themes. They add sentiment and we cherish them. A great way to remember a special day.

The boat races, oh the boat races! Another favourite part of the party! Kids have been floating things down creeks for centuries so of course our kids were entertained for what seemed like forever. Over and over they raced their boats down the stream. This little boat racing stand was filled with prizes, which had the kids take home winning gifts instead of a goodie bag. They were so excited to pick prizes such as slinkies, puzzles, note books, skipping ropes, compass’s, games and more. I love how old fashion this all felt.

Can you tell that they were all so excited?? Moments like these really do make my momma’s heart so happy! I hope they all remember these sweet memories.

The boat race finish line! Cute, right?

Little decor elements just take a little imagination but always turn out so special. This little flag was a DIY from some left over supplies and made the cutest little detail. The shovel was from the dollar store and adding a great finishing touch!

To our little Blake. It really was the perfect day for the happiest and sweetest boy. We adore his cheerful personality and so thankful that he’s part of our family. So much love surrounded him with our family and friends. Happy Birthday my sweet boy!

SOURCES

Market Stand, White Backdrop, Boat Stand: Custom built details below
White Umbrellas: Monika Hibbs Home (email [email protected] to purchase)
Striped Chairs: Monika Hibbs Home (email [email protected] to purchase)
Cake, Custom Sugar Cookies, Cupcakes and Cake Jars: The Cake Mama 
Market Vegetables and Carrots: Black Table Farm 
Salads and Sandwiches:  White Table Catering 
Wooden Boats and Rope Swing: Comme Des Enfants 
Signs: Custom Printed
Tablecloth and bunting: Custom, details below
Florals: Flowers From A Country Garden
Lillya’s Dress & Bow: Lavender & Lillie Handmade

A lot of the fun elements for this party we built or made ourselves, see below for details on each!

Bunting: Even if you are a beginner sewer, this is pretty simple little DIY! We used a variety of fabrics from our local fabric shop. For the thinner fabrics, we ended up using spray adhesive to hold together two layers so there would be a front and a back. After the spray adhesive set, we cut out the triangles and hemmed them together. We then used a cream-coloured cotton bunting tape sewing each triangle leaving a small amount of space between each. I know we will use this again and it honestly looked so cute! (Don’t want to make your own? I’ve found a similar one here.)

Tablecloth: I was presently surprised to find the perfect blue stripe fabric. And since it was the right width for the table, we only had to hem the two ends; which is so simple to achieve. Again if you a beginner sewer you can definitely tackle this.

Backdrop, Market Stand & Boat Races Stand: Troy and my brother-in-law ended up creating these for us.  They both are pretty handy, again we were investing our time and materials as we knew we would be using these for years to come for parties and events. (We’ve already re-used one for our lemonade stand.)

Large Market Table: I found wine barrels at a local shop in Langley.  I was already looking at investing in these for future events in the barn, so we decided to get two right away.  Troy was able to create a simple tabletop surface that created a perfect table to display all the food. I can’t wait to use this again for all our upcoming events.

Carrot Bubble Blowers: Such a fun and simple take home gift to make for your guests. We bought the large orange bubble blowers at Micheal’s and then purchased a simple green wired ribbon which we then looped and tied on top handle, creating an adorable “carrot top”.

Boat Races: This was a total hit! Seeing the joy in the kid’s faces when they launched their boat was so fun to watch. I have been searching high and low for wooden boats and was not having very much luck. We came across the most wonderful kid’s store from Montreal, and they had these cute wooden boat DIY kits, if you need a fun summer activity I would suggest getting one of these!

Custom Peter Rabbit Signs: Our Graphics designer re-created the illustrations for the signs, then we had them printed and cut-out at our local print shop – Signs at Large  – onto coroplast material so they were pretty sturdy, we simply attached them onto wooden stakes and hammered them into the ground.  A little tip – if your ground is hard, hammer the wooden stakes in first, then attach the signs!

Little Decor Extras: Because the Peter Rabbit story is set in the garden, lots of the decor elements were inspired by gardening. Such as gardening gloves, shovels, terracotta pots, veggies etc. It’s such a fun way to bring the theme to life!