CJ's 1st Birthday Party!

My son CJ just turned the big ONE on October 3rd, and of course we had to have a YGG party... it's his favorite show! Gabba Friends helped in so many ways. I really felt overwhelmed before I found the site because there is such limited YGG bday party merchandise available. But after browsing this site I was inspired!

I wanted to share some pictures from my son's party. It was a fabulous day and we had a packed house. Everyone was impressed with all of the little YGG details!

I made the invitation using Scrapblog.com (I am now addicted to this site as well!) It was really easy to do.

I also made his bib using the Brobee printable off nickjr.com (you recently featured a DIY about this that I sent in!)

I printed out all of the characters from nickjr.com and taped them to popsicle sticks I got at the dollar store. Then stuck them in the ground on our side walk so all of the Gabba gang could greet our guests as they came to the door!

I also made CJ's shirt from the Brobee iron on found on nickjr.com The back of it says "It's fun to be ONE"!

I made the party hats from plain hats bought at a party supply store, and again printed all the characters out from online and just glued them to the hats. I used puffy paint to make the 1 on CJ's hat.

For the older kids I used Silly Bands as party favors, and made these labels to put on them.

To make the labels: I created these labels using Microsoft Publisher. I used a different font for these that is not well known so I changed it to Comic Sans for the attachment. I know that not everyone has this program so I attached a form using Microsoft Word. I just printed these out, and then put the paper back into the printer reversed to get the "Yo Abby" and so on for all the guest on the other side of the same paper. I cut them out in circles and used a hole punch for each then thread ribbon through them. I tied them to the pails and Silly Bands.

Download Labels Using Microsoft

For the younger kids I bought some pails at a party store (they were only .99 cents each!!!) and filled them with coloring books printed from nickjr.com (I edited them a little so they would be personalized) along with crayons, YGG stickers I got from Celebrate Express, and a CD I made. I used foams letters to make the names on the pails. These also had the labels that the Silly Bands had. The CD had different fun songs and I made the label using label maker software.

I had the cake made by a local baker, and everyone thought that this was an awesome cake! It was so delicious. The cupcakes were bought at a grocery store, and I just used the YGG stickers from Celebrate Express on popsicle sticks to decorate them. They turned out really cute! The background on the table top was printed from nickjr.com and glued onto cardboard.

I did a Brobee party in my tummy bean bag toss. I just used a diaper box and covered it in construction paper and glued a Brobee picture on it. The kids LOVED this game. Some even asked if they could take it home! :)

I made chocolate covered pretzel rods for the "big kids" as a party favor. I put a sign in the bucket that said "For the big kid in all of us. Thanks for playing with us today!". I made a DJ lance hat out of construction paper and glued it on the pail they were in. Apparently they were good, because they were gone before me or my husband had a chance to have one!

I made the banner using Lei's tutorial. I used scrapbook paper and instead of printing out the letters I used dye-cut letters from the dollar store. Other decorations were just YGG characters printed offline and streamer from the dollar store. We also had YGG balloons from Celebrate Express.

The food was a variety of roast beef to pb&j sandwiches. We had chips, cheese, fruit etc. The picture on the buffet table is one I made on scrapblog.com of Cj throughout his first year. Everyone really thought this was a nice touch.

This was a special 1st birthday party for us. It was the best day, and CJ really enjoyed himself! I am so glad that I had Gabba Friends to give me inspiration for all of the details!