This Year Flew By...a Butterfly Party!

When Emmy turned one, we gave her an Elmo birthday party {quick rant, why do people hate giving their kids character parties?  Isn't the party supposed to be for the kid and what they want?} but since Charlie hasn't shown any real prefence to characters, I decided to go with a butterfly theme.  I'll be breaking her party recap into two posts...today is all about the theme and decorations!

I actually picked out this theme MONTHS ago and have been grabbing butterflies every where I saw them.  This actually made it really easy and helped spread out the cost!  Now with the invention of Pinterest and having photo evidence of these parties for centuries to come, my desire to throw the 'perfect' party is always in full force.  But as a SAHM with a mortgage and two kids, extra money for expensive party invitations and personalized labels is rarely in the budget.  So I have to get a little more creative on things.

Most of the things I bought for this party were from Dollar Tree.  Seriously.  The plates, cups, napkins, centerpieces, banner, invitations, table cloth, all from the Dollar Tree.  I love getting party stuff there!  The rest of the stuff I mainly got at Michaels.  Just little butterflies I'd see here and there.  I got a few blank paper and wooden butterflies as well and just colored them in myself!

The poms are left over from the bridal shower I threw...I just added some clip on butterflies!

To cut down on food costs, we did an afternoon party, from 1:30-4:00, so I didn't have to prepare a whole meal.  I made some spinach dip and hummus, both with chips.  I made the butterfly cake myself, along with some butterfly sugar cookies {which looked terrible, but whatever.} We also did an ice cream bar which was a HUGE hit.  I got three kinds of ice cream, a bunch of cones, and several toppings.  It was definitely the highlight of the party and fun for both kids and adults!

Containers for toppings

See, terrible...and no icing either

I got the idea from this blog

For favors I did a candy bar, which I also had used at the bridal shower.  I had a lot of the candy left over from a few weeks ago, so that saved money.  And the all the vases I got were again, from Dollar Tree!

So there you go.  That's how I throw a semi-fabulous birthday party on the cheap!