After many years of designing stationery & party themes for the kids of others… I am thrilled to be able to share the very first party I was able to create for my OWN {darling} kid!

Our daughter, Macy, turned one in March — and my husband came up with the genius idea of playing on her name and the idea of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the theme — so we switched Thanksgiving to BIRTHDAY and came up with “Macy’s First Birthday Parade.” This worked out very well for me too — because I adore circus/carnival themes and anything candy-related, so a parade theme allowed me to work in those kinds of elements quite nicely!

Circus Birthday Printables

My Circus Parade printables are available in two colorways: Pink and Blue! Use them to add instant style and personalized details to your party. 🙌 You can edit the custom text yourself – right on the website – whenever (and as often as) you need to! Click here to buy this collection.

There are lots {and LOTS!} of details and pictures to share, so I’m going to break this recap up into a few posts, starting right now with the outdoor treats/decor display set up on our backyard BBQ. (P.S. Recaps Part 2 and Part 3 are up now too!)

PARTY DETAILS

The main sweets table (with the cupcakes & smash cake) was set up inside the house, so this one was more about the decor/atmosphere. And it really just gave me an excuse to go crazy with the paper graphics & create lots of fun little elements like gumball-adorned picture frames!

My background is in graphic design, and it’s still the part of party styling that I love the most. I think I could just keep designing more and more paper elements and embellishments if I had unlimited time and I honestly and truly LOVE doing it… which is probably why I was up ’til 4 am the night before this party adding more and more and more stuff until my husband came in and reminded me what a loon I was being and that I probably needed to go to bed at some point in time. Oh, yes…sleep…that thing that always gets in the way! *wink* 🤪

Here’s an overview of the main elements pictured above:

“Animal Parade” Backdrop

…featuring colorful paper animals donning the same colors and patterns as the rest of the party. I attached these to wooden dowels {wrapped with ribbon for a candy stripe look} and added little “1” flags to them as well. To stand the animals up, the dowels were stuck into 4 floral foam bricks covered in wrapping paper. Yarn poms added a playful touch.

Lollipop display

This was inspired by one of the displays in the fabulous UP themed birthday party sent in by a reader.  I cut a small piece from a large styrofoam sheet for the base, covered it with wrapping paper, and embellished the edge with gumballs and a band of the multi-stripe paper. I also made a little “Macy’s” banner to display overhead.

Sweet Stuff & Cotton Candy Signs

These were one of my favorite elements! I designed these in Photoshop, printed them on tabloid size paper and cut them out by hand. To display, ribbon-wrapped dowels were attached to either side of the sign and inserted into rectangular vases filled with floral foam. The foam was covered with gumballs or pink yarn poms (to play on the idea of cotton candy).

Candy Frames

I am pretty much obsessed with the double-sided Tolsby frames from IKEA. (Please make these forever, IKEA!) They’re only 99 cents and have such a modern, versatile vibe. I added pixie stix and gumballs to the edges here… but you could seriously go crazy making “candy frames” at this price!

Popcorn Tray

Each guest received a cute bag of flavored popcorn from Just Pop In as part of their favor. The bright colors & packaging were so cute that these doubled as party decor! I displayed some of them on a white tray lined with the multi-stripe paper and embellished with ribbon & an extra water bottle label.

Sugar Cookies

I’ve been making a specific sugar cookie recipe since the 4th grade, and I still get at least 5 requests for the recipe from friends every Christmas – especially since Facebook materialized! (First discovered the recipe in the cookbook my 4th grade class put together for a fundraising effort!) I’ll do a separate post with the recipe soon.

Blue Elephant on Parade

This cute little guy is leftover from another party I did… he was a $6 purchase at HomeGoods that was spray-painted blue. I dressed him up for this particular occasion with a little felt overlay and a paper flag tied to his trunk. For the stand, I painted a 6″ wood round (these are about 50 cents at Michaels), trimmed the edge with paper (which made the wood look way thicker than it actually was!) – and hot glued gumballs to the top. I used glue dots to secure the elephant to the wood and the wood to a white candlestick holder that’s part of my regular home decor.

Parade Horse & Bicycle Bear

Similar in style to the “animal parade”, these individual graphics were attached to wooden dowels and inserted into either a small vase filled with foam or a wrapping paper covered {and embellished} floral foam brick.

Wanna see more birthday parade inspired fun? Check out party recaps Part 2 and Part 3 next! 😊

Circus Birthday Printables

My Circus Parade printables are available in two colorways: Pink and Blue! Use them to add instant style and personalized details to your party. 🙌 You can edit the custom text yourself – right on the website – whenever (and as often as) you need to! Click here to buy this collection.