Julieta’s first anniversary

TV Girl – Birds Don’t Sing

I’ve been very busy lately preparing Julieta’s Birthday party. I choose to do everything by myself, starting from our tutus to decoration and cake..which was a disaster, but considering it was Julieta’s smashing cake I don’t feel that sorry for it haha. It took me a while to make everything but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it and if you happen to have other members in the family that would like to participate it’s even more fun. I unfortunately had to do it all by myself since everyone else was busy but even so it was fun.

I’m really contend how I’ve managed to put all together but people have to realise that making such shootings with little kids are not easy! First of all they have their schedules and routines of sleeping, eating and besides that they usually hate to be placed in certain places, they like to choose for themselves where to go, what to do and where to look. Julieta is no exception and after hours of preparing the meals and decoration, when everything was finally set, she was hungry and tired so the shooting was not possible at that time. I usually make her shootings right after she wakes up and is fed, this is the time when she would do what I say and is less likely to cry or to protest. Even so there is a short timeframe when I have to act quickly, since she starts to get bored after a while!

I thought a tutu would be a must for her first anniversary since I never got the chance to dress her like that and I think baby girls are really adorable with tutus! I couldn’t find anything for me to match her tutu and I’ve decided I will just pick something from my wardrobe, then the idea of matching tutus came to my mind and I’m glad I did so. The tutus are really easy to make, you just have to cut strands of tutus, on desired size and wrap them over an elastic, like in the photos below. Julieta’s tutu was 30cm long, so the strands length has to be double since you are going to fold it in two. I’ve made strands of aprox 60cmx10cm for her and my tutu was made out of 90cmx10cm . You can add as many as how full you’d like the tutus to be. Even if it is easy to make, it will still take several hours if you want to make them full, since it takes some time to cut all the strands, but your work will be a lot easier if you can find rolls of 10-15 cm in width, which I did not. The elastic I choose to wrap the strands on was too wide, I’d recommend a thiner one!

I’ve purchased two faux pearl necklaces and I had them painted in colours matching our outfits: teal, pink and gold.

Decoration pompons are also easy to make, but they require hours and hours of work if you decide to make them as full as I did. They look incredibly good as decorations and in photos but I think I wouldn’t make them as full if I wore to do it again, you can’t see much of the difference, unless you have a closer look. I’ve made several sizes and colours. I choose to place them in different corners of the garden to achieve the desired decoration. One of the corners was with blue pompons and the Hello Kitty present, then I’ve made another corner where I’ve intended to make the shooting with pink and teal pompons and finally I’ve added some small white and pink pompons here and there. You can follow this tutorial to make the pompons:

I also intended to make some paper birds for decoration but I ran out of time. I think they would have looked amazing in the garden with the pompons. You can try them out following this tutorial:

I used strands of fabric of pink, teal, white and gold to make the decoration in the centre piece, and I’ve glued them on a thread. Here you can play with different shades and fabrics. I’ve used lace, paper and cotton as well. The main challenge is to find the shades you are looking for. I find it easier to search for different fabrics at second hand stores, which I did in this case as well.

After placing the tables, decorations and everything I wasn’t left with too much time for my hair and makeup, but it was so much fun searching for Spring flowers with Radu in the morning instead, to place them as decoration on tables and where needed. The flower basket was one of Julieta’s present from her grandparents and was absolutely amazing! I still have it in the room and it looks wonderful on the table. Julieta also had some helium inflated balloons but unfortunately a couple of them including a huge white one, which was intended for shooting, escaped due to a strong wind in the morning.

I had considerable help regarding the menu from our parents, but the drinks were prepared by me. I made a delicious coconut milk and strawberry milkshake and I decorated the glasses with coconut flakes and decoration candies, glued with honey. I think it’s so appropriate for a baby Birthday party!

I admit I wasn’t able to make a decent decoration for Julieta’s smash cake! I think there were four tries to make the cream adhere to the cake, which all failed! In the end someone gave me a little help and Julieta had a delicious banana cake all for herself! I would really recommend the smash cake thing, it’s so much fun! Babies are really adorable while destroying the cake. Obviously, a second cake for the guests is a must! Our second cake was a delicious walnut cake made by my Mom.