Polka Dots -1yr- Little Dot Dress & Matching Cake

I choose to celebrate my baby girl's first birthday with a Polka Dot theme. It was so cute, so easy, and photographed beautifully. I will begin by saying that I got alot of my ideas from another mother who submited an idea for the same type party (Thank you!!), but I changed a few things around. I got the inspiration for this party by buying my daughter the most beautiful smocked dress from Stasburg Childrens. It was a white biship dress with bright pink and orange smocking and the dress had bright pink, orange, and apple green polka dots all over the dress. It really was a gorgeous dress..very different. Well, I chose for her to wear this dress and I pulled those 3 colors as the colors of my party, pink, orange, and green.

The invitations were covered in the same color polka dots and read, Polka dot Come join our fun.. Our little Hope is turning one!" I had the cake to match the dress perfectly. It was very tall almost 3 feet with 3 thick layers and was layed out like a wedding cake with white icing and pink orange and green polka dots. The "bow" on top was make out of icing.

I used a plain white tablecloth but had cut out about 100 circles in various sizes in my colors and hung them on all the doors windows chairs and even on the sidewalk leading up to the front door. I spread the smaller dots one the white tablecloth around the cake.

I made little ham sandwiches and cut them out with a round cookie cutter to make polka dot sandwiches. We also served other round items such as skittles M&Ms cookies and etc. I bought solid color paper dessert plates and napkins in pink orange and green to spread around my polka dot cake.

For the "dinner" plates I bought polka dots with pink orange and green. Also around the cake I had a "party favor" for each guest to bring home. I bought little clear glass votives (the kind for smaller candles) and spray painted them white. I had my baby daughter use her sweet little fingers to dip her fingers in paint and polka dot all the glasses in pink orange and green. I filled them with dried beans and baked cookies on a popcicle stick which were individually wrapped with matching ribbon  and stuck them inside the glass containers. I wrote my baby's name and the date of the party on the bottom of each container. They matched the cake perfectly and looked so cute circing around the bottom of the cake. I also decorated with about 30 balloons in the colors of the cake.

I had ordered a CD which had all kinds of birthday songs sang with my baby's name several times in each song. Playing this CD was a nice background to the rest of the party. Before we opened gifts my baby changed into her "casual" outfit which was a crisp cotton "pillow case" bubble that was white with pink orange and green polka dots. The bubble tied at the shoulders with bright pink ribbon.

The party really turned out to be simply adorable because it was very cordinated without being overly done. And the pictures turned out so very pretty. I think splurging one a big pretty cake made a big difference as that cake and her outfit was the inspiration for the entire party. I hope you will find these ideas helpful and enjoy your "Pokla dot" party as much as I did!!"