Mama Gets Creative

Jumping jellybeans! How is it that our baby has already celebrated her first birthday? Little Bean is such a sweetie (and a little stinker, too!) and deserved a sweet birthday party. We enjoyed rainbows of jellybeans and a bean lunch. Check out what we did!

Since her birthday is in April, I thought we could take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and have the party outside at a local park. Although the wind was not on our side this day and it was chilly in the shade, we made it work. This meant we had to adapt the backdrop, but I think it still ended up looking good.

I bought plastic table covers from Hobby Lobby. They have rectangles for 99 cents. Making a curtain with plastic table covers is easy! Just accordion fold about 2 inches across, punch a hole with scissors about 2 inches from the top and feed in some string. I used balloon string (also 99 cents at Hobby Lobby), but any string or twine will work. There were nails already along the top of the picnic shelter that we used, otherwise we would have added our own or used command strips. Tie a loop at the end to make it easier to hang. Unfortunately, since we were rushing, I didn’t get the photos or videos on how to make this and the balloon arch like I wanted. Since this was so easy and affordable, I will absolutely be making this kind of backdrop again and will be sure to get the photos and video to show how to do it.

I love a good charcuterie board (although technically, when it’s just fruits and vegetables, it’s called crudité – pronounced crew-di-tay). It took me about 10 minutes to make this 1. I just cut out the 1 shape from a foam poster board and used the rest of it to create the sides about 2 inches tall. Measure if you want, but I just eyeballed it all and used open scissors to score all the cuts (a box cutter would have been better, but I don’t have one). I used masking tape to hold it together. Then I lined it with wax paper. I cut the pineapple and broccoli ahead of time so all I had to do when we got to the shelter was dump everything in rainbow order.

The rainbow table covers used on the picnic tables I found on Amazon. Get yours here..

When I pick a theme, I go all in on the theme. It’s beans, so of course we had beans to eat. I made calico beans in the crock pot. I think everyone went back for a healthy helping of seconds. Good thing I doubled the recipe! Here is the recipe I used. I put hot sauce on the table if anyone wanted it and some dinner rolls to go with it.

Did you know that box cake mixes have less in them than they used to? I’ve had to get a second box just to make a whole cake or have enough cupcakes. I tried making cake from scratch and turns out it is so much easier than Big Box Cake will make you believe. Of course, I could have picked up a dozen cupcakes from the bakery, but I enjoy baking so I do it myself. I made a simple white cupcake with vanilla buttercream and topped them with jellybeans, which 4-year-old big sister happily helped with!

The birthday girl had her own smash cake. No first birthday party is complete without the guest of honor smashing through a cake. Again, I could have easily picked this up at a bakery, but that’s not my style. I used a sugar free recipe to make this strawberry banana cake. The “icing” is whipped cream. I made this by whipping up some heavy whipping cream with the mixer until it was stiff and made it pink by adding in some freeze-dried strawberries that had been crushed with a rolling pin into a powder. I skipped the sugar for the whipped cream. If you want to make it sweet, I just add tablespoons of sugar at a time as I’m mixing until it is the sweetness I want. This cake turns out much like a muffin as far as taste and texture. There was quite a bit leftover, and she didn’t actually destroy the cake, so we took the rest home. It’s great for breakfast with a cup of coffee!

She had so many gifts to open! She was squealing with excitement the whole time while she ripped out tissue paper and destroyed wrapping paper! Such fun watching her open each gift, and I think big sister decided they were just as much for her as for her little sister.

The grownups played this Bean Boozled game made by Jelly Belly. It was a wild time. If you haven’t heard of this game, basically Jelly Belly took the look of their normal jelly beans and gave them a nasty flavor. In the box are look-alikes of normal, good tasting jelly beans (like pear, berry blue, cappachino, or birthday cake) and nasty flavors (like old bandage, stink bug, rotten egg, or barf). You spin to see which one you have to try and you don’t know what flavor you really have until you eat it. There are variations of these boxes, some that include game cards. Ours did not have the game cards so we played until all save one person gave up. The reactions to some of these insane flavors were priceless.

Everyone went home with a rainbow bag of jellybeans (normal ones) and a little thank you note. These are the favor bags I used. Everyone had a great time and kids and parents alike were exhausted after!