The Birthday Post

I think that a photographic narrative of the day would best suffice Mr. Benjamin's BigTop Birthday Bash...




Beginning with the fabulous invitations...


by tinyprints
45 invites
$67.69
(included tax + S&H)




















And you will all remember the tedious planning and crafting that went into it...
cleaned-out beer bottles (free after I bought and drank the beer!)
wrapped in striped paper (from Michaels - $0.25/sheet)


 (just a SNAPSHOT of what went on in the MONTHS leading up to the big day...)

used baby-food jars (free after Ben ate the food!) wrapped in burlap stuff (? lol) and curled ribbon

They became center pieces:

(homemade pinwheels, again from Michael's paper)

Photobooth props from felt and card stock and baking stick thingies from Michaels.

Wooden plates from Michaels (oh, say $1 each, $10 for the large heavy BigTop arrow) painted with

Acrylic paint (again Michaels - I basically made weekly trips...) maybe $8

Felt sheets from Michaels ($0.40 each) 

And I sat, while probably watching some trashy reality TV, and proceeded to TRACE AND CUT AND HOT GLUE all them bitches. 

Hot glue is MOTHER F*CKING HOT.

By the day before his party, my dining room table (heck the whole entire room) was covered in birthday paraphernalia.*

(*wow, spelled that correctly on the first go!!)


There was even a mini crisis when I noticed a few ants on the bags and bags (and bags) of candy for the next day's candy bar!!

None made it inSIDE the candy wrappers, and my adopted SIL's were great assistants helping me de-Ant...

















All that was left the night before was to bake cupcakes and his smash cake*:

(I got the idea for his smash cake (sprinkles around a "1") from Parenting magazine...
The popcorn cupcakes pretty much came from here.)

*Well, bake and hang yards and yards and yards of fabric in our garage circus tent! (don't kill me, I'm not sure where the pictures are of the fabulous garage-to-tent transformation, hopefully you can get the idea of it from other photos' backgrounds...)

We woke up bright and early on D-day, ready to finish setting up...

(Part II to follow, because HOLY PHOTO-OVERLOAD!)