1st Birthday Party For Under $30

Like any crazy parent, about a month before Jocelyn turned 1 I was like, "I must throw the party of all parties for a baby that doesn't even know it's her birthday!!" Why us moms do it, I'll never know. But what it felt like to me was that Jocelyn's first year was hard, any I just wanted to celebrate that we made it! We're alive woot woot let's eat cake! So I told Matt we were going to partay and then womp womp, my practical man gave me a budget. And oh this budget was teensie. Dare I say 30 bones. So basically in my mind I was like cool so we can afford one birthday hat and one balloon, but then I realized that every fiber of my being loves a good challenge and with the voice of Tim Gun in my head I set off to make it work!

So here's what I came up with and here's how I did it. Utah is the land of millions of weddings. And after these oooey gooey couples get married they're stuck with a ton of decorations they don't want. So ya know, one thing leads to another and the next thing I know I find a Craigslist bride that is selling millions of flowers for $10 and bam floral decorations and crafts galore!! I made the garland, the headbands, the floral arrangements, the cake topper and the floral letter all with the flowers. The birch wrapped boxes were another Craigslist find that another newly wed couple practically begged me to take and the banner on the wall and crown was made out of rose gold card stock (.99 per sheet at JoAnns). I wanted to have an activity for the fam there so I took some project life cards (previously purchased) and had the family write down their favorite memories in Jocelyn's first year. Of course the main event was the cake, I left Matt in charge of that and luckily messy'ole cake is in style right now:) I just stuck some roses on the top and done.

My total came out to $25 including the cake,balloons and all the decorations.

Who said you can't have your cake and eat it too:) Jocelyn did. No really, she hated the cake and refused to eat it.