One year ago, sweet baby K came into our lives. After a two day labor, he decided to reroute and greet the world via c-section. As Krishnum's first birthday approached we considered planning a family only event and keeping it simple. Then we realized, who are we kidding? We had successfully gotten our once-incredibly-fragile-baby to 12 months! So, it was definitely a reason to celebrate.Let's go all out!  

To let you know before you proceed further, I or we are not event planners or professional party organizers, am just a crafty nerd who wanted to have the most special party for her kiddo. So it was the first one of the kind and fun one for us, more so because we did most of the stuffs ourselves rather than outsourcing to any party planner or store bought ones. We learned a lot of stuffs on our way after several trial and errors. So thought of sharing some tips and how we arranged the party all by ourselves. Here are my tips for throwing a first-year birthday party with all of the most important ingredients: happy baby, stress-free parents, picture-perfect moments, and lots of style. The rest I jot them down for you! 

Deciding Theme and Venue:

From the time baby K was born I imagined a Krishna themed birthday with he dressed up as little Gopal. So had no doubts about the theme. We found an absolutely perfect venue, Casey Community Center. A beautiful historical dairy barn now converted to a community center, had the perfect mix of character and warmth. Couldn't have been a better palate for Krishnum's first birthday.

 

Background Decor

Lets come to the showstopper of the event. All our guests went ga-ga over the decor and wondered how came up with it.  The decor of this event was vibrant and sophisticated in our heads. One of my early inspirations for the party were the large scale gorgeous paper flowers I’ve seen that add such a fun 3-dimensional element to the space and set the tone for a stylish party and I just WANTED them for my K's birthday. I debated buying them but the huge price line made my decision easier. So I used my crafting skills and lots of YouTube screen time to make these flowers myself. Made them from colorful cardstock,  set them up on a cardboard with help of wires and my husband helped them to install them on the background stand. They turned out even better that I imagined and will be a decor piece that we can reuse in Krishnum’s room in the future. Krishna and his flute are synonymous so I also made a gigantic paper bansuri or flute from recycled poster holder. to be positioned in the center of the background. 

I would suggest if someone loves crafting like me, please do take up the task of creating decor items. But if you are not, a lots of options are available over amazon, etsy or ebay. This will save you from a lot of headache and stress.

The Dessert Table

The dessert table decor was kept very simple to not divert attention from the gorgeous background.. I up-cycled a diaper box and few tissue papers to make a 3-D "1" for the first birthday. Decorated the desserts on gold and silver stands to give some height. and  framed a cute pic of the birthday boy. We got the gold foil Happy Birthday balloons for K's actual birth date which was celebrated at home. So I attached them in front of the table for some shine and glamour. 

The Cake and The Desserts

The cake is first thing we always wish to match the theme of the party.The first thing you should do after choosing the theme is to think about the cake which matches to it. In our case, the cake and other desserts were local store bought (gasp!). We  didn't get a cake matching with the Krishna theme in our budget. So I for the first time tried chocolate model and made edible cake toppers looking like butter pots and flute. Attached a butter pot to the smash cake too.They turned out pretty good and had guest asking me where I got the customized cake!! My effort was worth. If you don't want to do modelling you can decorate store bought cakes with fresh flowers, chocolates. non-edible toppers or even buy edible toppers from etsy. 

Kids' Return Gifts

The ones like us who have never hosted a kids party underestimate the return gifts part. But trust me it was the most stressful one. Its best to give personalized gifts according to kids age in case  there is heterogeneous mix of them in the party. you can personalize these favor bags by decorating them as well according to your theme. We got gift boxes instead of bags and attached real peacock feathers (we got them here) on them with each kids name and thank you note. It was easy for us to distinguish the boxes and also fun for kids to find their own gifts. We did the same for the party hats we got for the kids.

Dress Code

Although this is not a necessary one for every theme that you choose. You can ofcourse let your party be a more relaxed  one by not mentioning a dress code. But we decided to go with the theme and dress up my little boy as little Krishna. So we got him a gorgeous sherwani from Amazon. I made him the peacock feather felt crown  myself to match the outfit and not to forget a paper bansuri or flute.

Me and Daddy K also wore ethnic outfits (click here to see my outfit post). We didn't go all out to be Yashoda or Vasudev, I think that would have looked too much dramatic 😝😝😝. We mentioned our guests to dress up in Indian outfits,  specially the kids. This was just for having fun and it wasn't a mandatory code.

Divide Duties

For the sake of your sanity, please do take help of your tribe on the day of the party. There are a million things to look after and you cant do it all! My family and friends came to rescue on the day of the event and I did divide the duties ahead of time so they knew what they had to do. For example, we had asked couple of friends and family to help us putting up the decor, looking after the food counter, taking pictures(very important!), bringing in food from the restaurant, and the last but not the least cleaning up after the party. If it not for the close friends and family we had here, the party couldn't have been a successful one.

Food

This is the part we took least stress for. we catered the food from outside, but made sure they were from tried and tested source. The adult menu was primarily bengali cuisine. All the guests enjoyed the food and gave amazing reviews as well. We also arranged for separate  kids menu so they feel extra special and can eat easily. Do plan to cook for guests only if you are confident you can and try recipes that you are good at, so that it doesn't go kaput on the final day.

I hope you found the tips useful. If you like the post please do like, comment and share it. Your words of encouragement keeps us going. Please do follow us on  Facebook and Instagram for latest updates on the blog. 

I have never really followed trends while dressing up. So this title of the post is  very unlike of me. But when I recently saw the pic of a renowned Bollywood celebrity wearing a frilled border Ruffle Saree all my brain said was "I want this NOW". Luckily on my recent trip to India saw a similar one on the page of an online seller and grabbed it as soon as I could. Before even thinking should I buy it, the saree was delivered to my home. Thus here I am posting the "trendiest" saree of the season Ruffle Saree. When we decided Little K's 1st birthday party theme (yes he just turned ONE!!) to be Little Krishna, I knew I had to wear a saree and grabbed this one as it was light weight, comfortable, stylish and a statement itself.

From the previous posts you might have known that how I love bright neon colors, thus I had to order this brightest one available from the lot. Here I am wearing that blinding tomato red frilled saree. The saree came with this matching net blouse and a liner fabric. I designed the net to be clear of any lining at the back and have a clear net neckline too. My tailor obliged and I love how its looking.

As for completing the whole look, I paired it with a 5 jhumki peacock earring that I specially bought for K's Krishna themed Birthday Party. Chose not to overshadow the saree with much accessory so teamed up kundan kada and kept the makeup heavy to match up the plain saree and the occasion. 

So if you up for some new saree style without emptying your wallet, this saree is for you. Its available is several colors and is a must try for parties where you want to wear something light. So after you have scrolled through zillions photos of mine😬(hope you didnt get bored) lets also have look at the birthday boy and Sr. K.

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Outfit Details

Saree and Blouse: Private online seller based in Kolkata

Earring: Etsy

Bangles: NaMo India store

Bag: Gariahat Hawkers Market, Kolkata, India

"Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the soil with laughter". Its the season to be merry, spread colors and freshness in air. So before the scorching heat sets in lets enjoy this brief spell of "আরামদায়ক " (pleasent) weather and immerse ourselves in colors. And in this years' Spring Look we have combined flowers with colors the two most inseparable entity of the season

Wearing a আবির  toned (hot pink hue of the specific powdered color used during holi) baluchari for the season. I own a couple of these masterpiece handwoven sarees(click here to read our last baluchari post) and Ma wanted me to buy one more for last Puja. I was more than happy to oblige 😜. This saree is in hottest pink available in the market which caught my attention the moment the seller asked me which color I wanted to see. So it was the rarest moment when I chose the saree in less than a minute. It has beautiful intricate meenakari work done.

But main interest of the look is the dull gold floral blouse I paired with. Onset of Spring means you’re about to see florals literally everywhere: blooming in the parks, blooming on people’s office desks, and especially blooming on clothing racks. While many of us loved wearing enough floral prints to fill a flower shop when we were kids, some of us can’t help but feel like we’re back in preschool when we try on the timeless trend as adults. For those of us who want to refresh our spring saree looks without feeling like we should be reaching for a nursery coloring book, there are lots of sophisticated ways to wear a flourish of petals. The first one and the most popular being a floral blouse. So here I paired the traditional silk saree with a floral printed blouse. It gives some freshness to the look. Whenever we have to pair a classic saree like baluchari, its not necessary to pair with the matching blouse go for something trendy and edgy as a floral print or stripes or even geometric patterns. The self designed blouse has a very stylish boat neck, contrast piping and large buttons at the back.

I hope you found some inspiration on how to drape your timeless traditional weaves and be the starlet this season. Your purchase may provide bread and butter for the extraordinary weavers who create such art with fabric. So this spring empower our own classic sarees.

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