The post about decor I just know you were all waiting for...

To say there was googling done to prepare for this party would be a vast understatement. Like I may or may not have spent serious amounts of time reading books in the bookstore...physical books...in addition to perusing a gazillion blogs, searching every Etsy store and walking down many a party aisle in first class shopping establishments like Wal-mart and The Dollar Tree.

My budget for the party was somewhere between "We need to make money on this event" and "How much do you have in change in your pockets?"

Now, I am not the best at budgets when it comes to parties. I don't handle them well. Overall, my approach to event planning is do it first class or don't bother. Thankfully, with the exception of a dark and very brief five months working non-profit, I have always had plenty of other people's money to spend on events.

And believe me, I can spend your money.

But our life on one income boils down to this: Is going back to work full-time worth this (fill in the blank with item)?

So I spent a good deal of time drooling over Etsy stores and blogs and then asking myself if going back to work would be worth buying personalized invitations?

12 times out of 10, the answer was no.

Thus my use of free items in the form of "Stuff we already own".

Besides the ridiculous amount of craft supplies, I have also managed to acquire a great deal of white china serving pieces. It started with a square cake plate we received as a wedding gift and well, ten years and numerous trips to Home Goods later, I am well stocked. I love these pieces because I can use ribbon that matches the theme of the event.

Obviously, I like color. And ribbon adds color without my having to break a sweat doing manual labor like painting walls.

None of the decorations were overly original. And by "overly" I mean not at all. With the exception of the laundry line of clothes.

Now for me to voluntarily add clutter to a space is a vast departure from my nature which is to throw all clutter away to provide easier access for dusting. Because cleanliness is next to godliness. Or so I hear. So for this idea to have come, it must have been a divine inspiration. And I totally think God likes a cute birthday party.

I went through Pumpkin's clothes from the past year and pulled out the outfits that represented a milestone or a precious moment. Her outfit she wore home from the hospital. The premie onesie mom and I bought when we realized newborn sized clothing swallowed her whole. The pumpkin onesie I made. Her dedication dress.

You get the picture.

I considered hanging a picture on the line with the outfit but that seemed a bit too pushy. Too obvious. It needed to be more subtle so that when mom saw it she would ask me what in the world I was doing with clothes hanging from my mantel.

I just live for those moments.

And the final product, if I do say so, was awesome. Chris and I loved looking at her clothes and how she's grown. Seeing the little red dress she wore in her newborn pictures and remembering that we had to use safety pins to keep it on her. It was also cheap seeing as we already owned the clothes.

All in all, the change I collected gave me just enough money to buy some adorable cupcake baking cups, paper plates & napkins, plastic eggs and clothes pins.

Combine that with the aforementioned large amounts of craft items, white china and baby clothes and you have yourself one adorable birthday party. At least I hope someday when Pumpkin sees these photos she will think so. She is certainly worth celebrating!