1st Birthday Fiesta!

Check out this outdoor Fiesta party for my goddaughter's 1st birthday!


Colorful Photo back drop- made with tissue paper flowers & PVC pipe.
This was a hit! 
I happen to already have the frame made out of PVC pipe from a previous event- it measures a little over 72" tall by 63" wide. We set it up on top of where the fireplace is to make it taller, but, it's not necessary to do so. The frame is tall enough on its own.
I ordered the tissue paper from  Store Supply Warehouse 480 sheets for under $40 plus I used all the colors that came with the Grand Rainbow pack. You can also buy packs of just one color if needed!

I referenced this YouTube video DIY Tissue Paper flowers
And used 5 sheets of tissue paper at a time (with the only exception being that light blue flower with a ball of green in the middle, that was a happy mistake! see more details on that below)
I made 4 sizes: full sheet, half sheet, quarter sheet...and teeny tiny which is half of a quarter sheet.
I used mostly fulls & halves and then filled the space with the two smaller sizes. I made a bunch over 2 weeks, sometimes with help, and never kept track. I do have about half the sheets leftover from my 480 pack though.

Here is the layout I came up with just on the floor before transferring this to butcher paper and hot gluing the flowers on. I started about a foot below the butcher paper so we'd have enough to roll over the top of the frame to tape down.

Back to the happy mistake! So I accidentally did a full sized 4 sheet flower- 2 reds, 2 teals and it didn't look very fluffy, but then a coworker who was helping me took a small green bundle and used a whole stack of paper on accident. The green ball made a great filler for the blue flower and added a different texture to the wall!

Once we rolled the butcher paper over & secured it with tape, some of the flowers were drooping. We simply used double sided tape on the backs of petals to get them facing forward. 

The sombrero, yellow tablecloths, Mexican flags & serapes were purchased from Amols.com

Serapes are actually pretty expensive elsewhere, which is why this particular item was always on back order when I was researching around. I ended up just emailing them to ask if I'd have it by a certain date and they were able to check for me. Give yourself plenty of time so you can get these in time!

The sombrero was decorated with artificial flowers from Michael's. I cut off the stems and hot glued them on. I picked out some leaves and added them as well. The ribbon is also hot glued on. The sombrero itself is zip tied onto the gate.

For the centerpieces I bought a basic long vase from the Dollar Tree and wrapped them with tissue paper. Cut a ribbon of tissue paper, double layer it, cut strips into it and then tape around the vase, going up slightly with each wrap. Repeat with multiple colors! And there you have a pinata centerpiece! 



My beautiful goddaughter is half Filipino and so to add that flair to this Fiesta themed party (besides food, yum!) The parents requested a pabitin. A Filipino version of the pinata. There are no good tutorials on how to make this thing, but from online photos I gathered it was a grid like structure that you tie on bags of candy to that the kids jump to grab. (being born in America, I didn't play this one as a child, so it was to be able to work on one!)

I purchased 4 ft. long 1x1 poplars from Home Depot. I had seen most of these made with bamboo or what look like dowels, but I wanted something thick enough and sturdy enough to withstand kids grabbing at it. I then spray painted 4 of them yellow and 4 of them light green. (the picture below looks like one color, yeah lame.) Once dried, I had help to line them up and brad nailed the poplars together.

 The real version is played by tying the middle of the grid to a tree so when kids jump on one side, it lifts on the other side and does a wobble effect. We didn't have that so we just had 2 tall guys hold it!! The candy bags & tissue paper were tied on using balloon string. We had an adult candy bags too! Hence the grown ups sitting on the floor, go mom! With lottery tickets and little bottles of alcohol. It was pretty clever and the grown ups had fun with it!




Thus ends another fun filled kid's party! Until the next event, Bea creative!