Need help organising Graces 1st birthday party

its my beautiful DD's 1st birthday party mid march, and i need a bit of help organizing it. its so exciting cant believe shes almost 1:( lol

Venue

I'm thinking an area near the beach near where i live theirs BBQ areas and shaded picnic tables etc, right near the river and little beach which i think will make a great spot, (the only problem was if it was to rain..)

2nd option is at a kids world, play centre thing theirs an special baby and toddlers area, the only problem with that is their has to be a minimum of 10 kids to do it, and i think i can only get a max of 5, as i only no 2 ppl with bubs :redface:

Invites
I'm tossing up whether to make them
or order them mm.. (any tips and ideas on what you did would be great x)

Like i mentioned before i don't no many people with bubs, it would only really be my cousin and dp's ds who are both around the same age.. and a whole lot of family and friends .. including xp's family..( then their a whole issue with how that going to work out )

Food

i'm going to pic a cake design and have someone make it, i was going to attempt to but i want to take the stress away from the day a bit more..

any other food ideas would be great?

thanks in advance beautiful girls

Is your house big enough to do it there?? Can you rent a little hall so that if it rains you are OK?? (I have had a rained out party before so am wary of outside!)
I have used websites to print out free invites for my kids, just google free printable invitations or similar its amazing what you can find.
Fruit kebabs are good, fairy bread (a must LOL) sausages/frankfurts are a winner.

I have a few kids party books that I can photocopy at work and post to you for ideas if you like??

Invites
I used smilebox for invites for DD's bday that I jsut sent out. They were great as I didnt have the money to order invitations. You can put a photo of DD on the invite in cute designs and music plays to it and then you send it by email.
Food
We are doing a sausage sizzle and then just plates of nibble foods like cob dips, plattars, fruit and then I will do some fun things for the kids.
Venue
We are doing it at home
Cake
Getting it made as I am hopeless and baking cakes.

HTH

Ali- the womens weekly ones are easy hun! I have a few cake books and they are " a piece of cake" to make (pardon the pun)

For DD's invitations (both years) we have made them on the computer at home and printed them on photo paper. Half of the paper wass a recent photo of DD and the other half wass the details, then I just added some pictures for the theme (ie: this year was a butterfly party so there were some butterflies flying around the photo and writing). They looked pretty good and I think it is nice for family, especially rarely seen family, to be given a nice picture of DD each year. We also sent out a nice photo after the party with a little personalise thank you message on the back.

I love organising parties. Have fun!!! :)

Thx ladies

mrsmac- thx beautiful ,my house is pretty small..wouldnt really be suitable for the amount of ppl that would be coming i don't think.lol
i have that woman's weekly cake book as well its awesome hay i might pick one out of their and get it made as i just don't think i could do it lol

AliBaby- oooo i have smilebox why didnt i think of that lol :) thx hun
when's you dd's bday party hun xx

If you were in Sydney i'd make it for you!

I have a couple of other kids party books with theme ideas etc too.

Ohh so so exciting hun.

The picnic idea sounds great, what if you checked at the auto shops or even the cheap shops for one of those little gazebo things, we picked some up from bunnings on special for like $20 and it would be perfect to have 1 or 2 in the car and pop up if it rains or even just for extra shade on the day?

Food: bbq meat, some salads, sandwiches, fairy bread (for the kids of course :lol:), mini quiches.. think of things that if possible can be made the day before and travel well.

Invites i like the idea of designing your own, i did DD's and then took them to office works to be printed, or get someone to help you design them if your not comfortable doing it yourself.

Cake - i cheated i bought the one for Ava... it was gorgeous though.

Have fun hun it's exciting... do you have a theme for the party, butterflies, beach, flowers etc... work around that on the invite if you do... lol

Our little girl just turned 1 last week!! (sad but exciting at the same time!!!)

I made her cake with the help of DH! (cute turtle cake!!) and we had everyone over at our house on Saturday and ordered heaps of Subway platters!!! ANd just put out other nibblies so it was low fuss!! We are so glad we got subway to make the lunch for us as that way we just had to pick it up and it was all done for us!! That way we could enjoy talking to everyone more. If we'd been in the kitchen handling food etc it would have been too stressful!!!

:D Good luck! It's lots of fun!

Havent read any of your replies but this is what we did for DDs 1st birthday and it was a great day.
We had it in our garden, lucky enough to have a big garden so no problem there and it was in august so nice weather (qld) and didnt rain.
For the invites i Took a nice photo of DD and at the photo shop i added some text just saying DD is 1 etc and printed them off and posted photo invites, worked out at about 20c each plus postage!!!!
Cakes, i made a few batches of cup cakes in the weeks running up to the party and froze them, got them out the freezer the morning of the party, whipped up a quick butter frostong and pipped it on, a few sprinkles and it looked like id bought them!!
As for food, just did a bit of a bbq, mini sausages in those mini dinner rolls and mini risoles. quiche, salads etc, really easy. A tote box full of ice and a few bottles of wine/beer and we had a great day!!
Even though i was adament that the day was all about DD, when it came to it, she just had fun looking at all the people in her garden so it didnt make to much difference what we did, It was a great day for me and DP! Have fun!

We are doing DD's 1st birthday on the 14th March. When's your DD's?

I had a really good thread going around about 1st birthday parties in this section of the forums. maybe check that out as well for ideas. :)

MrsMac- I rally am bad! no exaggerations. I cant even get those packets of greens cupcakes to turn out right. I have a really old conventional oven as well which doesnt help my cause. I love the WW cake books though. I can remember picking cakes out for our birthdays that mum would make. Actually there's an idea.... hmmmm...mum!