Crafts I did for Liam's Birthday

As I mentioned many posts back, I made some crafts for Liam's First Birthday. This picture shows all the crafts I did, including flag banners, birthday banner, photo banner and a cupcake stand. I mostly got these from good old Pinterest, of course. I also ended up making his invites. I will give a simple run down and include some links for you!

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Flag Banners (including the happy birthday):
For these, I followed this blog.
Basically do any kind of string or ribbon you want to use (I ended up using twine). Then make flags the way you want and size you want. From there, either glue them or what I did is hole punch them and ran the twine through. It was really easy, but time consuming. To add Happy Birthday or anything of the like, just print or cut out letters and simply glue them on. I even put an accent color being to make them pop.

For the Cupcake Stand:
Check out the instructions I used here.
Gather together sizes of cans (I used tuna for the base, a condensed soup can for the top, big progresso soup for the bottom, and a normal can such as fruit cocktail for the middle. You also need cardboard or foam boards (the Dollar Tree has big square sheets of foam boards) and I just doubled them up. I used plain old scissors to cut circles (I traced around pizza pans and such to get my sizes). You could also use an x-acto knife too. It is ok if the edges are messy because you will need some kind of paper or ribbon to cover up the sides. I wanted my stand basic, but you could even tape/glue down some paper to the boards. Then just hot glue the cans to the boards (they will come right off) and glue the ribbon a little at a time and you're done!

For the photo banner:
I found that idea on Pinterest too, but you don't need a tutorial. Basically use ribbon or twine (I used ribbon this time since it held better for me). Then print out the pictures you want (I used my son's first 11 months for his first birthday), tape or glue them on some paper for a nice background and then paper clip or use clothes pins. I love this idea because you can use the pictures later and just using clothes pins or clips wont ruin the pictures.

For his Invites:
I wont even explain this because it took so much time! I used a combo of different invites I found and put them all together. In a short version, I used LOTS of cardstock, pained some polka dots because I couldn't find scrapbook paper I liked with them and then did multiple layers and I ended up sealing it all with modge podge (which is AMAZING glue). That took too long though, so I just did self-laminating..super easy. Oh and for the writing, photoshop was my friend.

Party favors: 
I think this was the easiest thing ever. Liam of course used to eat baby food, so I saved all the jars, washed them out good and filled them with goodies. Over the course of a few months I found great deals on fabric and candy so I filled them up with m&ms or skittles. I them put the lids on and covered them with fabric, securing with ribbon. You could use any kind of favor or even the 3rd stage of the jars, which are a bit bigger. There are TONS of uses for baby food jars and they aren't that expensive.

If you have any other questions let me know. It is all pretty easy. If you haven't used Pinterest, you need to. I could look around on there all day. A lot of stuff you can find at the dollar store or for super cheap. I paid a lot less for all of that stuff than if I were to go buy the decor. I love being crafty though, good luck!