“Last April when my 4th child was born 5 days before what would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday I knew two things, 1) I would name her after my mother, Violet Elizabeth and 2) when this little girl turns one, she will have a PURPLE PARTY! As her first birthday approached I revisited the idea of a purple party. With just 6 weeks of lead time (I have 3 other kids to tend to (a 5 year old son, and 3 year old boy/girl twins and because I am a big DIY’er) I had to get busy. I scoured the internet for the perfect 1st birthday dress. I knew I wanted frilly and lavender. Once I received the dress from http://www.poshlittletutus.com I contacted my favorite baker, Lesely from the Royal Bakery ( http://www.facebook.com/#!/theroyalbakery ) http://www.facebook.com/theroyalbakeryllc?ref=ts#!/theroyalbakery and she came up with a design to match Violet’s dress perfectly. I then made just about everything else myself. I used my cricut to make the banner, welcome sign, favor sign, food tags, labels and center pieces. I ordered straws ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/CakesAndKidsToo ), poms (some I made and some I ordered from (Luna Bazaar) , personalized purple crayons, purple play-dough, purple balloons (www.shopsweetlulu.com) , 2 sizes of purple beach balls (www.beachballs.com & http://www.orientaltrading.com ) , found amazing lavender pinwheels (Diddams) and frilly lavender fabric ( www.rufflefabric.com), which I saw in pink on http://www.iheartnaptime.net and Jaimelyn Nye was sweet enough to tell me where to find it and how to sew it and hang it for my backdrop. I also ordered rock candy and taffy fromwww.ohnuts.com and http://www.candy.com. I wanted light and dark purple candy so I had to order from two different sites.

Of course my 3 year old daughter wanted a purple dress of her own, which I found from www.dreamspun.com. On the invitation (which I made as well) I requested everyone to come in their favorite shade of purple! As the day arrived, my husband and a couple of friends helped blow up a ton of balloons to line the walkway and helped with setup. I made “lavender lemonade” (homemade lemonade which I added some purple food coloring and some sprigs of lavender) I froze a ton of circled sliced lemons to put in the lemonade instead of ice as to not water down the flavor, we were expecting 90 degree weather that day. We had two tables of activities for the kids, 1) the “color something purple” table, where I had printed up all things that could be colored purple. i.e., grapes, plums, flowers, etc. Again, I had special ordered 2 boxes of 4 different shades of purple crayons. 2) The other table was the “create something purple” table where the kids were given purple play-dough and purple stampers along with other play-dough utensils to be creative with. When it came time for the birthday girl to have her “cake smash” I thought ahead and made her a backdrop to sit on so she could enjoy her cake on the ground and I could have great pictures with a fabulous backdrop. I took 2 pieces of art board, glued them together to form a right angle. I then covered them in lavender polka-dot fabric, put some poms on the back and there you have it…instant back drop! Violet loved every minute of her cake smash and really enjoyed being able to really “get into it!” It all came together so lovely. Our friends and family had such a wonderful time!!”