Creative Ideas for 1st Birthday Party Planning

There are actually three roads to take when planning a 1st birthday party. While plenty of people advocate having a quiet, family only party since the baby won't remember any of it except through pictures, others look at it as an excuse for an all-out bash since they won't have any choice with any of the birthday parties down the road. Still others call for a happy medium where family and close friends are invited to a simple birthday celebration.

Funnily enough, while the big bash does mean that you'll be spending a lot, you'll need to be more creative when planning a smallish birthday party! Not only will the budget be more tightly watched, but spectacular won't cut it here. A small party means a lot of people will be able to take note of the smallest detail.

Now while most parents won't admit that the 1st birthday party is more for themselves than for their child, it's important to get the child's interests celebrated as well. He or she won't be able to remember anything about their special day except through photos and videos and it would be nice for them to see something special in the mementos.

So observe your child: Is there any color he especially likes? Make that the main color of your party, even if he prefers orange instead of blue. What does she like to do? If you notice that your little girls likes puppies, you should have that as a main theme. What's the favorite food? Unless it's something that others won't like, like broccoli juice for example, have that food as part of your menu.

While there should be a birthday cake for everyone to eat from, the birthday boy or girl deserves a little cake of their own to blow out the candle from and eat by themselves. This doesn't have to be a big cake, maybe something as small as a cupcake, but it should be as beautifully decorated, or even more so, than the big cake.

Choosing what your child likes could be the theme of the party itself, and that will help tremendously with the choices that you have to make. Be thrifty when buying decorations, unless it's something you can use for your child afterward. One young mother was dead set on having Hello Kitty tablecloths for her daughter – until she saw the price. So, after a lot of searching and surfing, she found shower curtains and bed sheets in the Hello Kitty designs that she liked. After using them to decorate the party area, they now decorate her daughter's bed and bathroom.

Balloons and crepe paper can “party up” any place. Keep to a certain color scheme when choosing your decorations, though, or it will end up looking like a mess. There are decorators that suggest choosing up to seven complementary colors to decorate a room and that would be good limiting advice. One nice touch is to hang the paper streamers on the ceiling, instead of on the walls. That limits the size of the room and leaves the center empty. But decorating the ceiling makes the whole area seem a lot more festive.