Bargain 1-Year Birthday Bash

Ahhh, the one year birthday party is behind me, and it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I ended up pulling the entire party off for a rather cheap price. So, if you're looking for birthday bargains and ways to cut corners on price, I've got some suggestions for you.

The Favors:

I started with the favors because this is where I got my inspiration for the party. Peter Rabbit stuff was in the dollar bins at Target just before Easter. There were mini board books, notebooks, pencils and sticker books. I snatched those up and decided to make that the theme for the party. Dollar favors. The only cheaper option is to skip the favors :) I've heard of others buying Halloween stuff on clearance for a Spider Man theme party, etc. The favors are wrapped and displayed in the basket below:

The Invite:

This was a last-minute deal, so I couldn't order from Vista Print because they charge an arm and a leg for fast shipping. Peter Rabbit theme invites are few and far between (as my long search on the Internet proved), but I stumbled upon this treasure. This lady basically sells a file of an invite for only $5, and it's pretty much immediately emailed to you. I got this invite:

And with a little manipulation on Word and printing it on brown card stock turned it into this (sorry the file is a little hard to read):

The decorations: 

We focused more on a Mr. McGregor's garden theme and filled a park pavillion with potted flowers, scarecrows and gardening tools (no cost). I bought a couple of tablecloths, paper plates, and bunny centerpiece on clearance after Easter, again from Target. My sister-in-law has a hookup with a linen company, so she got me white tablecloths with green overlays--even though I didn't pay for these, if you can splurge a little, these made all the difference. It really took the decor up a notch. The centerpieces were buckets and vases I had around the house, and I bought a $4 bouquet of flowers that I cut and used in each vase.

The One shirt:

A dear friend of mine has a Cricket and cut the pattern out for me, and then I traced this on material and appliqued it to a $3 tee from Hobby Lobby. I'm probably the most proud of how this turned out :)

The Food:

This cost us the most money. We saved by asking family to bring sides, cutting coupons and buying in bulk. But, food is food, if you plan on feeding 40 people, it's going to cost some money no matter how you break it up. The best way to save is to plan a party that doesn't land during mealtime.

The cake:

I didn't want to have to cut cake and serve on separate plates, so I opted for cupcakes and borrowed a cupcake stand. Of course, Andie had her own little cake too! She ate all the strawberries off of it first. That's my girl!