Little Man Party: The Decor

So, this past weekend was the big one around here...Colton officially turned ONE on Saturday, which meant it was time for his Little Man party.  Although I was a bit obsessive thorough with the planning (you can check it out here if you want), I am thrilled with the way the party came together.  We had so many friends and family members with us to celebrate, including my grandfather who flew in from Florida just for the occasion (how loved is this little boy?!?).  It was a really special day and a fantastic party (if I do say so myself.) 
So...on to those details I obsessed for months about.  Let's start at the front door.  I drew a big number one free-hand and then filled it in with various pictures of our sweet baby boy from the last year.  I was pretty pleased with the final result:

Another element I DIYed was Colton's birthday banner.  Using scrapbook paper, ribbon, and my school's Ellison machine (see...teaching does have some advantages I guess), this thing was so easy.  I just glued 2 scrapbook circles on top of each other, glued down the letters, hole punched a couple of holes at the top of each circle, and strung them on...voila:

The weather in Virginia Beach on Saturday was a dreary 46 and rainy (seriously!?!), so our party was unfortunately confined to the indoors.  This also meant that the decorations I had planned for the back porch had to be brought in.  I had planned to hang these clotheslines of pictures along our back deck, but instead they ended up above the windows.  They, too, were super simple...I had spray painted some clothespins a couple of weeks ago (green and blue to go along with our party's color theme) and just used those to attach some other favorite Colton pictures to a ribbon:

The mantle was also given the full Little Man treatment.  Above it, we decided to hang one more clothesline of Colton pictures (there were so many cute ones to choose from!).  Along the actual mantel, I hung some greenish and blueish ties.  In between the ties, we put up the monthly pictures of Colton that I have taken.  I really liked the way it came out:

At the front of the mantel, you can see Colton's time capsule box.  The pens and paper were out for people to write him a note to put in the box if they wanted.  I am so glad we went with the time capsule (although people still brought our spoiled baby boy some presents!)...he has some really fantastic, sentimental letters in there, a Justin Bieber cd, mementos from the Steelers Super Bowl run, and tons of other fun evidence of 2010.

We also put several arrangements of balloons around the house.  I just drew a moustache on black poster board, cut it out, and taped it to the balloons:

Oh, and of course, there was the little man himself (with my mom, his fun new toy, and the remnants of his first attempt at a cupcake).  Baby boy was super styling thanks to his customized onesie from this Etsy shop, a blazer from Children's Place (thanks Aunt Genna) and his adorable Sperrys.

Are you done hearing about this party yet?  I hope not because I haven't even gotten into the food yet, including our totally fun treat buffet.  I'll spare you and save that for tomorrow, but until then, here's a little preview shot: