March 3, 2013 - i gave birth to my adorable son - Jayce Vincent! We were the happiest seeing him for the first time. Every 3rd of the month we celebrated his birth date, and ice cream cake from Baskin Robin have become a monthly tradition. By the time he reached 12 months, Jayce already knew how to blow his birthday candles!
Come March 2014, time to throw a party for my Jayce... but being the party fairy in the family, I was not at all planning pretty hard for his birthday party. There were hesitations if we are to throw one but then we finally decided to celebrate, so I ended up cramming and planning the entire celebration a few weeks before March 3, 2014.
The Venue
We decided to hold the event in Grand Millennium Al Wahda Hotel's Saadiyat Ballroom. The venue in itself was grand and spacious, ready to house families and friends celebrating with us. The function hall is already dressed in fancy lights and contemporary designs that we don't need much effort to style the place. And one good reason why I booked here, was when I found out that I know the Events Manager - Hatem, it was nice seeing him again. For bookings and inquiry you can send email to: events@grandmill-alwahda.com
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| Saadiyat Ballroom, Grand Millennium Al Wahda Hotel Abu Dhabi, UAE |
In any event, choosing the venue is my first and foremost in the list. Now that we have chosen and finalized the venue and the menu, my preparations started rolling out one by one.
The Invitation (DiY)
Since we are holding the event here in Abu Dhabi, I created an online event calendar in Facebook to invite families and close friends. This is easier nowadays than having to spread out invitation cards to all your invited guests. This e-invite was posted on the Facebook Event page that I created for this party. The invitation was made using Adobe Photoshop.
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| Facebook Invitation |
I finalized the theme for this party - Up, Up and Away, since for Jayce it is very obvious that he likes balloons at that time, and since Jayce is growing up so fast that I thought a hot air balloon would seem to fit as his 1st birthday theme. I got my inspirations for this Up, Up and Away Party theme from www.karaspartyideas.com.
I created a mood board (as always in every events in my family) in Pinterest to help me organize my thoughts about Jayce's birthday party. I keep all my inspirations here.
And as promised, I started out this blog to inspire other moms here in UAE for some party ideas, now I am sharing these with you.
Let's start with - the Party Printables!
Any party would absolutely "rock" if we have the right print outs and artworks. In order to have a totally coordinated party, we should take into consideration every single little details on it. From the invitations, color motifs, artworks or logo, fonts, table setting, venue styling, balloons, cakes and sweet treat, well this could go on forever!
Starting with the most detailed, I downloaded all the party printables in www.PrintasticDesignShop.com I found in ETSy, the supplier has loads of other party printables to choose from. My downloads includes full set of scrapbook e-paper, full party package printable except invitation and thank you card. Below are the screenshots of the items inclusive of my purchase. Price for all the instantly downloaded items was 25USD.
I used the water bottle labels and put them around Masafi water bottles. I used the treat bags for the candies and macarons treats. I used the flaglets to design lollipops and centre pieces.
I used the Up & Away banners, the cupcake toppers for the cuppies and the marshmallows, the pinwheels, and the tent card I used for the food labels.
I also used theses party printables to style the place.
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| Party Printables in action |
The BLOCK Letters
Having block letters of the celebrant's name is fast becoming a trend. From my inspirations (mostly based in the US) they can easily find stores that sells plain block letters that you have liberty to style and design. But here in UAE, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. We have some party suppliers in Manila of course, but logistically speaking, I had difficulty deciding. So, instead of looking for suppliers - I did J A Y C E letters on my own, with the help of my very supportive husband. I printed in an A3 paper the biggest verdana font it could fit and cut the letters JAYCE, put them on top of a flat styro (i bought from Al Jarir bookstore in Mina, Auh) and trace them with a cutter. I made some paper mache and stick them on to the letter styro to make it brittle - this is optional of course. Soon as its all dried up, I covered the letters with the matching hot air balloon paper (included in the downloaded printables). Prices: Styro 5AED.
Hot Air Balloon Cake and Cookies
I got so little time to think of a cake design, so I just took one of Jessica Harris cake designs of Hot Air Balloon that I saw in www.karaspartyideas.com through Pinterest and requested my ever dependable cake artist Ms. Chona of Dolcetti di Mamma to make the cake for Jayce. The cake was 2 layered but the bottom was double barreled, it's chocolate cake covered in yummy and smooth fondant toppings. She also made matching hot air balloon cookies with fondant icing and personalized J and #1 designs.
Abu Dhabi Moms out there, if your parties are important to you as much as your kids are important, you should consider having your special cakes made by this amazing cake artist. Please visit her website www.dolcettidimamma.com
The cake was so adorable that we do not want it to be cut. Click here to find out this cake's story according to the cake artist herself.
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| Dolcetti di Mamma Hot Air Balloon Cake and Cookies |
Chocolate Cupcakes with Edible Toppers
The yummy chocolate cupcakes featured in Jayce's cake table were made by a colleague from work Tracy (click her name to visit her facebook page) and were given as a gift by Guia.
French Macarons
The french macaroons which I deliberately picked teal and lime green colors were from GrandMa's Cheesecake in the 3rd Level of Mushrif Mall opposite Daiso. For every 100gms of macarons is 16AED, that will be around 12 to 13 small macarons. I bought 300gms, 150gms for each color. They have 3 other branches in Abu Dhabi, check their website for more http://cheesecake.ae/index.php
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| French Macarons from GrandMa's Cheesecake in Mushrif Mall |
Chocolate Covered Almond Nuts (Teal and Lime Green Colors)
To fully incorporate the theme, these yummy chocolate covered almond nuts added some theme colors to the cake table. These candy treats can be bought in Lulu (specifically Lulu in Mushrif Mall - they have much wider range compared to other Lulus). Around 40AED for a kilo of these candies.
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| Colored Choco Covered Almonds |
Marshmallows and Lollipops
The white marshmallows and theme-colored lollipops were from Candylicious store in Dubai Mall. I put some flags from my printable sets at the end of each lollipop sticks and with a small bbq skewers from Daiso, I created the marshmallow sticks.
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| Marshmallows with Personalized Toppers and Themed Lollipops from Candylicious |
The Table Center Piece
When it comes to events, what I like most is I get to do some DIYs (Do It Yourself). I made this Hot Air Balloon inspired center piece, a design that I saw in one of Amy Atlas' blogs. The base was actually a flower pot that I bought in Daiso (also in Mushrif Mall), I stacked some newspapers inside, cut a Balloon stick (from Party Centre) in half and blew a medium sized Teal Balloon (from Party Centre). I put some menthol candies (from Lulu Mushrif Mall 19AED a kilo) and chocolate goodies wrapped in blue and green to incorporate our birthday colors (also from Lulu 23AED a kilo) on the pot for guests take aways.
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| Right Photo: Inspiration Center Piece from Amy Atlas Blog Left Photo: DIY Hot Air Balloon Center Piece |
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| Actual table set-up |
On each guest table, we featured my DiY Hot Air Balloon Center Pieces and some photos taken by our photographer friend Eriq Bagallon during a photoshoot a few months before Jayce's birthday. Visit his facebook page by clicking his name to see more of his photography.
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| Photo captured by Eriq Bagallon |
Entertainment
The party was hosted by my sister Maan, she did a very good job being the emcee of the night. She and husband Jun also performed and gave our guests some acoustic performances during dinner. For anyone interested, you can send inquiries to sesyonista@gmail.com
To entertain the kids during dinner, we hired a magician from Smart Ideas. For inquiries you can call this number 050-2364673.
And just because the screen of the ballroom is huge and the sound system is great, we played the movie "Frozen" for kids to enjoy. This was when we were about to end the party.
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| Sesyonista in action |
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| Acoustic Performance by The Sesyonista |
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| Magician showing tricks to the kids |
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| Kids enjoying the magic act |
Party Favors and Souvenirs
These ref magnets were made especially for our little man - Jayce. Courtesy of my husband's family back in Bulacan, these cuties came all the way from the Philippines. I have sent the donwloaded paper and artworks and Jayce's photos to DJMC Printsolutions' Djonnas Santos and the rest were his ideas. He made 3 special designs of Ref Magnets.
The ref magnets were nicely wrapped in a white gift bag (from Daiso) and I closed it with a coordinating ribbon and punched a thank you gift tag.
Birthday Chalkboard
The Chalkboard with some personal details of my son on his first year of existence here on earth was also present during the birthday celebration, this was featured on the entrance of the ballroom for the guests to read before going in. I got this idea from ETSY, which is also one of the trends these days. So instead of ordering online, I made it myself! Another DiY for me. I got the board from Al Jarir Bookstore (in Muroor opposite of Farook) which costs 12AED and the colored chalks in Al Jarir Bookstore (Mina). You can search for chalkboard ideas at Etsy if you want to do this on your own or order online if you're not in the mood to have chalk dusts :)
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| Jayce Vincent's 1st Birthday Chalkboard |
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| I also used the 'practice' chalkboard to accentuate the gifts table |
Photobooth
In every party nowadays, having photos printed as guests souvenirs are definitely a-must have. For Jayce's 1st birthday, we got the photobooth services of our forever supplier Chichay's Arte Co. owned and managed by our dear friends husband and wife Jan-Jan and Che. Please visit the facebook page if you are interested.
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| with the Chichay's Arte Co. owners Jan & Che - photobooth in action |
Party Paraphernalia
To end this entry, I will list the party supplies I used to make my son's 1st birthday unique and memorable. Feel free to leave me a message if you have questions :)
Party Centre, Al Wahda Mall:
- Balloons
- Balloon Sticks and Lock
- Flat Plastic Plates (Long - holding the cookies, Square - holding the Marshmallows and Lollipops)
- Flat Plastic Plates (Long - holding the cookies, Square - holding the Marshmallows and Lollipops)
Daiso, Mushrif Mall
- Candy Jars
- Appetizer Plates (Holding the French Macarons)
- Dainty Baskets (Holding the Party Favors)
- Pot (Base used for the Hot Air Balloon center pieces)
- Yarn (Strings used for the Hot Air Balloon center pieces)
- Easels (of different sizes and colors, used to hold photos, party banners
Al Jarir Bookstore (Mina Port)
- Flat Styro
- Small Wooden Clips
- Coloured Chalks
- Black Chalkboard (illustration board)
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| Party Paraphernalia |
