Ladybug Party -1yr- Polka Dot Invites

We decided on the Ladybug theme back when we were pregnant. Everything from the Baby shower to nursery to birth announcements were Ladybug themed so it fit.

Our invitations were hand made I cut out red and black circle then cut the red circles in half then took a hole punch and punched holes in the red halves then glued them to the black circle in a way that made it look like ladybug wings then cut out quarter size black circles that I glued on top, then glued little eyes on to make it the head. I printed out labels that red little spots and polka dots that's what ladybugs are made of. Our little lady ____ is turning one wont you come and join the fun! Fly on over to the party hive September 14th, 2008 at 1:00pm. _____ Park. Give us a buzz @ _____. Hope to SPOT you there!

 I had a small ladybug on the label as well. I stuck the labels to the back of the ladybugs I made and cut off anything that hung over then I took green tissue paper and cut them in to squares and put the ladybugs in-between two pieces of tissue paper and in to a red envelope I printed the same ladybug on labels with the addresses to our guest and a return address label with our daughters name on it.   Everyone LOVED these invites!  

We had her party at a local park, and we were set up in a corner so we had the little picket fence to decorate as well. We set up two easy ups next to each other one was for the center stage with the cake/ gift table & our daughter's decorated highchair. We also put the HAPPY BIRTHDAY ______ banner on the front of this easy up and decorated the corners with streamers and balloons. The other Easy up covered the food table and also was decorated with streamers and balloons. The cake: we actually made a few cakes one for our daughter which was a small lady bug with her name on it, two larger ladybugs and one bumble bee since we did ladybugs & bumble bees for the kids (girls & boys) The cakes were made with a Ladybug pan and decorated as directed.

The Food: We went to the dollar store and purchased red platters and bowls, and then went to our local grocery store and ordered sandwiches I then made pasta salad and a fruit salad and put out chips and dip, all on the red platters and bowls. We used a black table cover for the food table so the red food serving dishes would stand out.

We purchased from an online site, red and black flatware, plates and napkins. I made flatware/napkin bundles by taking a knife spoon & fork (all red or all black) and then wrapping them in the opposite color napkin (red was in black and black was in red) then taking a piece of balloon streamer to tie them closed. I then put the bundles in a Ladybug plush basket we had got our daughter for trick or treating this year.

For decorating we went to a local party supply store and got solid red black and yellow balloons and streams we filled all the balloons with helium and made bundles three red and two black balloons with red and black balloon streams then tied the bundles along the fence in our area we also made yellow bundles only smaller (2 yellow and 1 black balloon) and alternated putting those a long the fence as well. We also got from the same party supply store solid color table covers we had a total of 6 tables one cake/gift table with a red cover one food table with a black table cover and four tables for the guest to eat at which we covered 2 in red and 2 in black we then tied more balloon bundles to the chairs at these tables.

I also made a glance at our daughters 1st year for the tables. I took 12 photos of my daughter one from each month of her 1st year and glued them to popsicle sticks then I put one popsicle stick in a flower pot and filled the pot with green died rice then placed all 12 flower pots around the four tables and on the back of each I wrote the age of my daughter and on the cake/gift table we had a photo boarder for everyone to sign and in the center I put a note that informed everyone to check out the flower pots to see how much our daughter had grown.

For games since our daughter was only 1 we only did Pin the Ladybug on the flower I took a large piece of blue construction paper and made a flower out of smaller piece of construction paper then cut out  red circles that I drew a head and black dots on and then wrote each child's name on it and put a piece of tap on the back instead of giving a gift for the winner I just handed out the favors after the game, which were ladybug and bumble bee bug jars that we ordered online we put a 4 oz thing of bubbles in each jar that we had put a label on with our daughters photo and the message saying Happy 1st Birthday ______. Thank you for celebrating this special day with us we also put a few temporary ladybug tattoos in the jars that we had got from the same site. And since we were at the park it was okay that we didn't do many games there was plenty for the kids to do to burn of energy!