This party was a total CIRCUS!

          It was my son's first birthday and it was such a fun day of celebrating. Since it was the big 1 and he's most likely the last child, I decided to really go all out for his party.
         My husband and I threw around a few ideas and we landed on a circus party. Let me just tell you, that you will end up spending hours looking at Pinterest when you do a search for "circus party".  

         I picked out the ideas that were just too cute to pass up and the ones that were financially feasible, and this is what we ended up with.

I used my silhoette cutting machine to cut out the circus tent on the wreath and the blue "H" .

The bunting was one of my favorite things. I tried cutting the letters out with my silhoette but that didn't go smoothly, so I just used paper letters to trace onto the felt. I also love the red and white striped curtains. I couldn't find any ready made striped table clothes, so I cut up those cheap rectangular ones from the party store and taped the red strips onto the white. 

Balloons are always fun and cheap and instead of helium(which can really make it expensive), I got those balloon sticks and holders instead. The sticks were .10 and the holders were .5. Then the kids could take them home after the party.

I loooove to do sugar cookies for every occasion. I found this awesome website (http://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/)that has just about every cookie cutter you can imagine. That's where I found my cute elephant, lion and tent. 

We had sliders, chips, kettle corn, cookies, red vines, cupcakes and animal crackers that the kids took home after the party. We used those red and white paper food trays as plates. It was all finger food so no utensils to worry about.

I always do a little cake for the birthday baby so here's Hank's. I just used the leftover batter  and frosting from the cupcakes and it was just the right amount for a sweet, little cake.

I used my silhoette to cut out triangles and then glued on  the pom poms and ribbon to make the party hat toppers. I have to say that the cupcakes were really yummy. I love this recipe book that I got. It's called Make Bake and Celebrate by Annie Rigg. I used the vanilla cake recipe, meringue buttercream and chocolate meringue buttercream. I'm a chocolate addict so that was my favorite frosting.

     

Knit that!

       Like I've mentioned before, one of my new obsessions is knitting. It's something that I've always admired but was always too intimidated to try. My grandma taught me how to crochet when I was in 5th grade and it was no problem at all, but the idea of TWO needles just kinda blew my mind. I had my mom show me how a couple years ago and it just didn't sink in. I decided that I was going to conquer that skill if it killed me and so my mom showed me yet again and...I got it! My 10 year old daughter and I both picked it up, so we had each other for support.
       I'm still a novice but I decided to expand my horizons beyond knitting scarves. I found a great blog that showed me how to knit this gorgeous waffle knit hat. http://www.pickles.no/waffel-hat/ 
       It's slightly intimidating knitting on the round for the first time, but it ended up being totally easy. I found a you-tube video that showed me how to cast on and connect the two ends. I've forgotten which video it was, but if you did a search I'm sure you could find one.

I'm so happy with how it turned out, and so was my daughter since she ended up with it. My next project is a hat for my husband that has different colored designs in it. I saw a book at the library that teaches you how to graph out a pattern for a hat. I think I'll try it out and tell you how it goes.