Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Baby Birthday...Getting My Martha Stewart On

E's first birthday comes up in just 16 days. Holy cow, how time flies. Because it's his first birthday, he won't really understand the whole concept of getting older and presents and "this party is for you". But I do, and I've been thoroughly enjoying the more grown-up concept of, "you have an excuse to do all sorts of decorating projects." Yup. I'm a DIY nerd.

Needless to say, I have quite a few inspirational photos tucked away in my Pinterest pages. Snacks, cakes, favours, wall decorations, table displays...the whole nine yards. I've decided, out of a mild degree of laziness, to go with a Halloween/autumnal theme for this party. It's easy to do and it looks good. And it doesn't require the sort of effort and expense I'd go to in order to make a visually accurate Very Hungry Caterpillar cake, or a caterpillar made of paper lanterns like this one from Pottery Barn...

so cute, but no way...
So, one of the small projects I've already set my hand to are jar o'lanterns. What are they? Random empty and washed out food jars painted inside and out to look like jack o'lanterns. They're super cute, dirt cheap, and really simple.

via, Martha Stewart
I have a set of about 13 sitting on my dining table. Baby food jars, a Nutella jar, even an empty bottle of curry sauce. I just snagged little tubes of acrylic paints from the local craft store at about £1.25 each: yellow, orange, deep orange, and black. I already had the Frog Tape and an X-acto knife.

The one thing I would advise? Make sure you press down all the edges of the painter's tape once you've cut out your face. Otherwise, the paint bleeds through and you have to spend a lot of time with a rolled up corner of paper towel painstakingly tidying the edges of your stencil. Yes; that was a lesson learned through trial and error.


In the end, you have a lovely set of jars like this (which I know you'll see somewhere in all the pictures I take of this party). I think Martha suggests putting electric tea lights inside, but since our party is in the afternoon, I don't think I'll be taking it as far as all that. Besides, I still have paper bats to cut out and some candy corn-themed bunting to hang over the sofa. Happy times.

Meanwhile, it's not-so-happy times as I have a stinky, angry, whinging baby in serious need of a nappy change. Of course it would be right after I've already changed him that he decides to poop. Of course it would...

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