rowe timson photography » rowe timson photography ~ commercial photographer and family portraits. sydney, brisbane, gold coast.

last november i photographed gabes 1st birthday on the gold coast.

it was the most well thought out party with delicious food and loads of cool things going on…  i thought it would be nice to share a few photos with you from the day and some useful links on how to create a party like this, incase your feeling inspired!  besides, who doesnt love a circus themed party?

party theme ~ vintage circus

invitations ~ sophia at casa azul design

event planner and stylist extraordinaire ~ sophie {gabes mum}

catering ~ DIY… sophie {gabes mum} and her family made everything and boy was the food yummy!

entertainment ~ balloon artist and pass the parcel complete with a very talented guitarist and singer making up music especially for gabes special day!

gabes bow tie and bandanna bibs ~ by Alfie

party supplies ~ i love parties

i asked sophie if she wanted to share a little about the day and the preparation involved, a few of the details and here is what she said (ive added links and a comment here and there too)…

With so much of the party being DIY, it meant a lot of cooking, organising and setting up had to be done at the last minute.  In fact, much if it was done just hours before the party!

note (from rowe) : people were working in every room but the mood was calm and organised and by the time the guests arrived, the party area looked amazing!

I got my design inspiration from blogs and websites featuring birthday parties.  A lot of the decorations ideas I picked up online at different party supplies websites.  Keeping in mind all of the various ideas I had seen, I created a vision that I thought worked for our space.  A lot of what I ended up doing was decided at the last minute and worked out just as well as the things I had planned months in advance!

With the cakes, I had such limited time and needed to find as many short cuts as possible!  The vanilla cream cupcakes I made at home using a white wings cupcake mix!  I bought the pastel striped patty cases online at Robert Gordan Australia and got the pink flags at Wheel and Barrow.

The popcorn cupcakes were home made.  See the recipe here!  On top of the cupcakes were torn marshmallow with dabs of yellow food dye to resemble popcorn.  Sofia at http://casaazuldesign.com made the cases for me as PDF files and I printed them at home.

note (from rowe) : these cakes were so yummy its insane!  i could have eaten 3 but stopped myself at 1 thankfully…

Gabe’s birthday cake was another white wings creation (dark chocolate mud).  The flags on top of the cake were made by Sofia.

He had the best time crushing that cake with his little fingers and it didn’t really make it to any of the guests lips unfortunately!  Gabe successfully managed to destroy it instead!

Inside the party bag, we gave all the babies a mini musical instrument, circus themed maze and a small bubble blower.  We wanted to keep it simple and give them things we thought they would actually use rather than a whole heaps of things that would end up under the bed or in the trash can.  I put all of these things into a small muslin bag with a blue or pink ribbon attached (depending on whether the child was a girl or boy).

sophie has a blog of her own called lil mumsy…  she shares all sorts of good stuff on being a mumma to an adorable boy so be sure to check that out!

rowe x