1st birthday anticipation

YAY! Our little Ella Joy is turning 1 on saturday. G and I can't wait to celebrate her big day! We are going to have a big bash with lots of friends and family! I know that many of you are young parents as well... Any 1st birthday party ideas/stories you would like to share? As many of you are in a creative field, I am particularly interested in the cakes you created for your little munchkins! Care to share pictures? (I was toying with the idea of having a letter birthday cake spelling out Ella, guess what font? Helvetica of course!)

Comments

[traci]

happy day to you both and to miss ella! those little stripey feet are pure joy!

[debra]

we just celebrated the first birthday of our boy/girl twins two weeks ago - a huge milestone, to be sure. The bubble machine (purchased at Target) was a big hit as were some helium balloons - both produced lots of smiles from the babies (and the bubble machine gets used every time we go outside). Re: cake - I did a "cupcake" cake for each of them in the #1 shape with their name printed vertically down the number and butterflies added for Sophie and bugs for jack. If you haven't seen one of these cupcake cakes, basically they take a dozen or so cupcakes and put them into a "shape" and frost it (really thick and gooey)so it looks like one cake -- very cool effect. It was great when all the nieces/nephews got to literally pull the cake apart! In Texas, Central Market makes these for about $18/cake. In NYC, Cupcake Cafe or other spots might have something similar - or at least be able to create something super cool (same idea could be used to spell out her name!) - or if you're really crafty, just try it yourself. I don't have a photo right now to post, but if I can get one uploaded, I'll send it your way. Enjoy the day!!

[sonnetj]

My 1st Birthday was in Texas in the middle of July. My mother kept my clothes on just long enough for the photo op of me pulling the head off the lovingly-prepared lamb-shaped cake. After that, she stripped me down and I bathed myself in ice cream.

My first child is due, in Texas, in August. I feel certain that some body of water will be involved in most of his birthdays.

[Stefan]

Hi there, no birthday idea for your ella, sorry. But please have a look at your "Recommended" list, it's "Signal vs. Noi_s_e" not "Signal vs. Noice" I think.

Please keep on feeding me with all these good thoughts / things at your blog, thanks and all the best from germany

Stefan

[Giuliana]

Hi, compliments for your blog!
I think you can make your cake (if you are able to cook it) with handwriting caracters: just put the dough in a squirt and write the name, then put everything in the oven. Or you can make the writing over a rectangular cake with smarties (I imagine all the cake covered with smarties, and the writing with different colour's smarties)
Sorry, I don't have any photograph...
I hope my english is comprehensible :-) (I'm an architect from Turin, Italy)
Happy Birthday!
Giuliana

[wendy]

OH HAPPY DAY!
Lots o' pics, please....

[antonia]

we just celebrated our son téo's first birthday, a huge shared picnic party in the park with a dinosaur cake...kids wearing homemade crowns, cupcakes, and plenty of champagne...some gorgeous photos here...
http://maisonette.blogspot.com/

[jubgulia]

My son's 1st birthday is also Saturday. We are going to have Funfetti cupcakes in the park.

[Nicole]

My son just turned one last weekend. We had a fun monkey themed party with 14 little ones. You can see this short video which focuses a lot on the decorations.

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:170460

[ROOMSERVICE]

Such a esthetic photo - I liked it a lot. You should take a few photos in this style and make a collage. Happy birthday to Ella from Sweden!

[kevin]

Hmmm...sounds like a perfect time to BabyCupcakes; if you're still in nyc. Here's there website: http://www.babycakesnyc.com/

They were selected by NY Magagines as 2006's Best Cupcake :) http://nymag.com/bestofny/food/2006/cupcakes/

There's also Sugar Sweet Sunshine - http://www.sugarsweetsunshine.com/

Of course there magnolia, Cupcake Cafe et.

I bookmarked this old link(2003) from the NYTimes list of all the popular locations: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/dining/05CBOX.html?ex=1383368400&en=c17e0928d62d4ee9&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

There have been a lot more new bakeries to the scene since 2003, though.

[mikepop]

Here is a "lake campsite" cake (sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy)

http://stuff.mediaarealive.com/z0e/media/2004_birthday/images/02-cake.jpg

You hollow out some of the cake and fill it with blue jello. Everything else is made of candy, frosting, etc.

Here is a "sandbox" cake:

http://stuff.mediaarealive.com/z0e/media/2003_july_birthday/images/12_edible_pails.jpg

The "sand" part is actually crushed vanilla wafer crumbs over vanilla pudding. The buckets are cut-off ice cream cones covered with either frosting or sand. The shovels are made of pretzel sticks and gum drops. This cake was a big hit with the kid :)

I had success making a three-layer white cake (magnolia bakery cookbook) with their decadent buttercream frosting (chocolate inside and pink outside). Careful with the red food coloring - a little goes a long way. Next year I'm going to try a letter (C is harder than E, so let me know if you have success).

Of course, since my little girl had never tried refined sugar, she didn't like the cake at all. I had also made some sugar-free, whole-wheat cupcakes and put a little frosting on them which were a big hit with the Mothers.

http://tinyurl.com/22fhv9

[dan]

we have a cute little Ella as well. Ella Matisse. so funny, we also made her a helvetica "e" cake for her first birthday. she's 4 now. all grown up. we made her a goldfish cake too (with gummy peaches that we had to remove so she wouldn't choke). our son just turned one and we made a monkey cake. link to a little gallery of the cakes and ella belle diving into one here:

http://www.danrichards.homeunix.com/cake_gallery/

[wine makes mummy clever]

We made Martha Stewart's Caterpillar Cake for our daughter's first birthday (she's an Ella Caitlin, and I used to call her just Caitlin when writing about her on my blog).

Here's the link to a photo:

http://blogasmic.typepad.com/photos/happy_snaps/010902419m.html

I did a ten hour cake decorating course after trying to create the Choo Choo Train Cake from the Women's Weekly Kids Birthday Cake Book (Australian readers will know what I'm talking about) and that course was the best $120 I ever spent. If you like making your own cakes, I highly recommend taking a course in cake decoration. It has saved me many hours of angst and crumbled cake!

[Barbara]

happy birthday ella! congratulations.
hope you have the greatest first birthday party!

[mod*mom]

happy 1st birthday ella!