Rylee's party

As most of you know we had Rylee's 1st birthday party yesterday over at my parent's house. It was a very small gathering of our closest family and friends. The theme was Sweet One based off a decorating collection from Hobby Lobby. It really fit for Rylee because she's such a sweetie. :) One of her infant room teachers called her Cutie Pie all the time, and one of her new toddler teachers calls her Sugar Bear. Aiden also like the decorations because they had hearts which are the symbol of his birthday since he was born on Valentine's Day. I have 2 sweeties!! Here are some pics:

I made Rylee's cupcakes myself using the Pillsbury funfetti batter and pink sparkly icing which was super sweet in my opinion. The cupcake tower was also from Hobby Lobby.

My big decorating project was a birthday banner. Aiden was a huge help on this one as I was finishing it up Saturday morning. I used the Here & Now collection from Echo Park (which was my original inspiration for colors) purchased from www.embellishonline.com, a banner base by Paper Studios from Hobby Lobby, Powder Puff Ink in Mocha Mama by Quick Quotes, and various flowers and embellishments I had on hand. I used the base as a template for tracing onto the various papers and cut them out. I used the Cupcake lite Cricut cartridge to cut out all the letters. I have a Cricut Expression (courtesy of my 10 years at BG), so it was super easy. I literally loaded the cartridge in the machine and used the touch screen to select the letters and size I wanted. I knew my banners were 12 inches tall, and I was doing 3 or 4 letters per paper. I just opted to fill page which gave me approximately 6" letters. I loaded my paper and touched the cut icon. It actually prompts you about 3 times before it actually cuts, so you have the opportunity to change your mind. LOL! I think it took maybe 10 minutes to load, select my letter, select the size, cut out, unload the paper, and detach the 10 letters from the mat. Easy Peasy! I opted to ink the edges of the pennants and my letters, and I used pop dots to attach the letters to the pennants for a little dimension.

Rylee had a wonderful time opening her gifts and lots of help from her younger guests: Austin, Aiden, and Zachary. She also really enjoyed her cupcake. This was her 3rd birthday cupcake, so she knew just what to do with it.

It was a wonderful day. I'm so thankful my parents let us use their house as it is bigger inside and out than mine, and I appreciate the Dolan clan for coming on their very busy day. We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends. I hope you didn't mind the over abundance of pictures. I had a few requests after my pic post on Instagram of the papers, and I wanted to go over the whole event. Have a blessed day! ~Heather