As an author and writer, throwing a book-themed first birthday party was a natural fit for my firstborn’s first birthday! I called it “P’s First Edition.”
I drew inspiration from the “ONCE upon a time” theme that I’ve seen others use, but I wanted it to be more of a book theme versus fairy tales. I searched far and wide for the perfect touches for her intimate little soiree!
We had a small family party. Just the three of us, Little P’s grandparents, my aunt, and my brother, but I still wanted some cute photos for her baby book! And we had a great time.
“First Edition” Birthday Party Invitation
I used Canva to make the invitation to “P’s First Edition” birthday and although it was just a texted invitation, I was so pleased with how it turned out! I subscribe to Canva Pro and I love using it for things like this. It has so many preloaded graphics, but with the Pro version, it magically offered me different versions of graphics I was considering, so I was able to find the perfect version of a castle sprouting out of books for our invite!
If you’d like to try out Canva (the free version has a great deal to offer!), you can use this link to get a free “Premium” element.
First Edition Birthday Party Food
I kept the food simple for her book-themed first birthday, but themed by naming them with little placecards. For instance, the subs were the “heroes of our story” and spanakopita hors d’oeurves were “love triangles.”
The best part of the appetizers was a sweet little dessert board I put together! I called it the “Happily Ever Afters” dessert board! I placed a donut in the center of a crown, cut out the center of a donut with a book-shaped cookie cutter, found “mythical creatures” cookies, and included letter cookies, gummy worms (aka “bookworms”), pretzels (“plot twists”), and oreos (black and white, like a book’s text!).
I initially planned on baking a book-shaped cake using this pan, but when I realized that Publix had a book-shaped Christmas cake, I was pretty confident that I could modify it to be a birthday cake! The bakery personnel did a great job!
Book-themed First Birthday Party Decor
All of the food was set out on the counter with heart-shaped book confetti. For that, I simply ordered a heart-shaped paper-cutter and used a discarded book to punch out the hearts. I also put out some counter decor, some of which I already had from my office, but this fun LED light-up book was new!
I printed out pictures of P’s monthly milestone photos and pasted them to book bulletin board decorations.
We had a backdrop stand already, so I bought this cute book-themed photo backdrop.
To be honest, the backdrop was great but I wouldn’t really recommend our stand. We have to use large claw clips to hold up backdrops and they can kind of ruin an aesthetic, so to get around that, I had my first balloon garland attempt to hide those. I used the balloons that came with this set and this balloon pump.
I also used these pretty O-N-E blocks in one corner of the room and some hanging decor from Dollar Tree–nothing wrong with being thrifty! I added a high chair tulle decoration that I purchased from Hobby Lobby.
For a personal touch, I took a newspaper page basket that my mom found from Trader Joe’s, wound some Ling’s Moment flowers around it, and put some of P’s favorite bedtime stories into the basket for our guests to see her “recommended reads.”
Book-themed First Birthday Party Outfit
For P’s book-themed first birthday outfit, I placed a custom order with Etsy seller Blushing Rebel for this onesie in gold glitter to add the phrase “Published 2021.” I would highly recommend her! It turned out perfectly and looked so cute when paired with a pink tutu.
All in all we had a perfect book-themed first birthday party for our little girl! “P’s First Edition” was one for the ~books!
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