Ana kutti's First Birthday

Ana kutti turned one early May and the previous months had been hectic, in a pleasant way. Her first birthday had been more important to me than she would ever know. I wanted it to be a memorable one…for me. (cheeky grin). In my defence, I come from a middle class family where birthday parties were meant to be attended and not for celebrating. And as is the case with that generation, I didnt see anything amiss. I was perfectly happy taking a box of chocolates to school and getting back home to have special dal payasam made by mum. The first time I celebrated my birthday was while I was in college when I was doing my post graduation.

But now, I wanted to live a bit vicariously through Ana. So I started with her e-card. The guest list and what I wanted for the party were all meticulously written down in my diary. And the e-card was going to give me an idea of the attendees. I checked various card designs on Google Images and I wanted ones that were pink and of complementary colours. 

Some of the backgrounds that I liked. Google Images

That included purple and white and orange and green. All pale. I also wanted to include Ana kutti’s picture in it. The ones I had taken all through her first year were good but not of high pixel. I enlisted a dear friend’s help and we spent an enjoyable afternoon getting her to pose and taking pictures with an iPhone and a Canon. 

Once that was done it was about getting the picture on to the e-card. After several tries which included stumbling onto some new stuff on MS PPT, I was able to get the background done. For editing her picture I used two apps from my android – Eraser and PhotoLayers. Both apps were free and I was able to use this basic tool to get the work done. Eraser helps you cut out unnecessary parts of a picture and place that picture onto another one. Photo Layers as the name implies adds layers to your photo. So you can take one clip art or an edited object and place it on your picture. It’s pretty cool.

I made the card into a PPS with a birthday song going on loop and I added a second slide which was singularly the best thing I could think of to recognize the importance of the day. 

From Elle Belle Blog

I had asked guests to contribute to a time capsule which will be opened on Ana kutti’s 18^th birthday. I had seen the invite in Elle Belle's blog and I was impressed by how well crafted and thoughtful the invite and the concept was. The guests for Ana's birthday were mostly uncles and aunts with no fellow one year old. So I had to think of something to mark the day, and this time capsule idea was a good one! I had many people asking me to explain it better and later, thoughtfully bringing along their contribution to mark the day which will be seen 18 years later.

Thought bubbles from Unstumble

I did ruminate about the return gifts for guests. It ranged from donating tree saplings to getting personalized items for them to use. But what seemed like a terrific idea considering the profile of the guests, was a photo session with their family with/without thought bubbles that I got from Unstumble on Amazon. We decorated the space with fairy lights and balloons and had guests pose against the backdrop. It was fun and it was an excuse for everyone to dress up. KA Candids took care of the photo session and covering the whole event.

The venue and the food were not a problem at all as we hosted everyone at our favourite place, the Madras Gymkhana Club lawn. There was greenery and space and the guests were able to move around and try out the tasty buffet selected by S. I am a believer that good food makes a good event. 

The birthday cake was a cute white chocolate and raspberry compote cake with pink ombre rosettes. I liked the idea of pink rosettes as it was a trending cake décor now. All credit for the cake goes to Bake O Clock by home baker Sneha. She understood what I wanted and delivered without any glitches. The fairy lights, the Happy Birthday Banner, pink and white balloons to compliment Ana’s lovely 3D butterfly frock from my favourite website Hopscotch, the blackboard poster from Prettyurparty marking Ana kutti’s first year – all just merged well. It's a worth a mention that after many days of contemplating whether to get a designer to do her dress, I fell back on my trustworthy online shop Hopscotch to choose a dress for the little one. Not only was it perfectly girly and delightful, but it was also wearable and soft on her skin. I didn’t really set out with a pink and white setting, but as I started organizing stuff, it seemed like a good colour theme.

Butterfly dress - Hopscotch.in

Sample board - Prettyurparty.com

There are beautiful memories of that day and some lovely, thoughtful ones that she might open on her 18th birthday. For now, I should get those memories recorded in a photo album. That's another craft work that is waiting to be completed in my to-do list.