Berry First Birthday

I couldn't believe when the time arrived to host our twins' first birthday party - time really flies when you're having fun - or on autopilot in this case! What a blessing the twins have been so far! For our son's first birthday, my husband really wanted to do space invader (click here) and I felt it appropriate to have an individual theme for each twin. But what a mammoth task to organise a dual themed birthday party. For our little girl the berry theme really attracted me - her berry first year!

This post focuses on our little girl's berry theme. The next post will contain detail on the little space invader theme. For decorations I kept it simple. The entrance hall was decorated with printed berries, matching the invitation with text indicating our little girl's berry garden. The idea with this was that the guests would walk from the entrance hall onto the patio into a berry garden, with all the treats that were berry related. Outside on the patio I had two sets of printed decorations, the first was a collage of photos, one for each day of our little girl's first year, with a berry first year description on top. Our little girl's name was printed as strawberry filled letters. Because I was hosting a party for twins, one wall wasn't large enough for all the photos, so it had to run over to the wall above the snacks table. The main decoration for this wall was printed letters on top of strawberries to spell our little girl's name with the number one.

The snacks for the berry theme focused on the sweet side, whereas the space invader side was more savoury. I bought most of the snacks and focused on baking only a few things. The first couple of sweets I served were a variety to strawberry wafers and strawberry jam filled cookies, strawberry and cream jelly sweets and strawberry and blueberry balls which I called berry balls. I also served mini pink meringues which I initially bought to use on the cake, and decided to serve the leftovers, which I called strawberry foam. I also created a bowl called strawberry garden which consisted of strawberry marshmallows covered in chocolate, fluffy and fuzzy pink strawberry flavoured marshmallows as well as green fuzzy cream soda flavoured marshmallows. These were absolutely soft and fluffy and had this fuzzy taste, what a treat!

I baked profiteroles, filled with cream and caramel and made a pink glaze to pour on top, and decorated with edible rose petals. This is always a hit - I give credit to the caramel and cream combo! To finish off the berry theme I served a variety of fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries) as well as three different types of grapes (white, red and black) and served with a choice of whipped cream, custard and chocolate sauce. The idea was for each guest to build their own berry cup, using the pink muffin liners as small bowls, and adding berries, grapes and toppings to their liking. I absolutely loved this and found it to be something different. This also added a fresh element to the table.

To quench the thirst, I served strawberry and mint cordial. I absolutely loved the colour and the taste was divine. I made a few straws by adding berry pictures of the theme to the straws I had left over from my 80's themed birthday party (click here). As the cake was for the little one's cake smash I baked strawberry flavoured pink velvet cupcakes, , filled with caramel, decorated with strawberry and vanilla flavoured frosting, topped with a fresh raspberry. I served the cupcakes in red and white polka dot cupcake liners and placed  a strawberry cupcake topper on top of each cupcake. My idea was for these cupcakes to taste like a big strawberry and it absolutely turned out fantastic.  When eating these moist cupcakes, it was like eating a delicious berry. This one is a keeper!

Instead of getting each guest a thank you gift that will become a white elephant in a cupboard, I served pink sweetie pies to fit with the berry theme, with a cute little note saying "thank you berry much".

​For lunch, we served delicious lasagna with cocktail buns - easy to serve and warm for winter. Not all guests ate the food because they filled up with too many delicious snacks! I didn't make paper plates and cups this time around, but rather used the plastic plates and cups I used for my 80's themed birthday party (click here).

To make the occasion more special, I designed and printed a shirt for each twin to wear on the special day, to fit with their individual themes. For the cake smash I only made a small 15cm one layered cake. The cake was plain vanilla cake, decorated with pink frosting at the sides and white frosting at the top. To make the cake more fun to eat for our little girl, I added a few Flings chips and pink meringues as decoration. I also plotted the letter D with mini pink marshmallows cut in half. There was also a candle with the number 1 which we blew out on behalf of our little princess.

This was a really fun theme to play around with, and there is so much more to add to this theme. Be on the lookout for part two - space invader level 1!

The Invitation