The day has arrived – quicker than you could ever imagine – your baby’s first birthday! You want to make this first celebration of life fun, significant and memorable for both your little one and your guests, but how? I suspect you still find it challenging to shower and dress by noon, let alone plan an elaborate complicated party.

Your baby’s first birthday should be a day more about fun and celebration and less about stress for Mom, so I have a few ideas to create affordable, unique, once-in-a-lifetime party memories in a snap – and free-up more time to clean-up the mountainous piles of diapers, wipes tubs, toys, and peas splattered on the wall next to the high chair before your guests arrive!

Picture/Video Montage

Chances are you went and purchased a digital camera sometime ‘round week 13. Admit it – you have a ton of pictures on your camera that you haven’t yet uploaded, right? Now is the time!

• Check the software that came with your camera;
• Use pictures from birth to present;
• Add your favorite tear-jerker songs and let it run during the party on your PC!
• Or a create a DVD for playing on your television!

If you want to get really ambitious use some cute font from your word processing software, insert your favorite picture, and print out “CD covers” to create additional CDs or DVD’s for your guests to take home. If you need help a quick Google search will give you some great pointers.

Framed “Guest Book”

Let your guests write “guest book” entries on a canvas and create a piece of art your baby can keep for a lifetime. Any craft store will sell art canvases (those for acrylic paints work best) you can use for this project. The same store will usually have open wooden frames (no glass) that fit the canvas size you choose.

Decide on your color scheme: dark blue and silver, dark red and gold, or light pink and purple, for example.
For the background, choose any of the multitude of acrylic paints (Hint: The most expensive isn’t necessarily the best; you shouldn’t pay more than $5 per tube for this project, and one larger tube will paint a large canvas.).
Select one or more paint pens and choose colors that will show up well against the background.
Allow your guests to write a message to the baby with the paint pens on the canvas as they arrive.

After the party, use the wooden wedges provided with the canvas, place the canvas in the frame, and with a few whacks with a hammer you have professional looking framed art!

Tomorrow I will share a couple of other great ideas… stay tuned!

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Show off your little ones first birthday status with a birthday shirt from Define*Me Clothing:

Find great first birthday gifts at Pipsqueak Boutique: