Circus Animal Cookie First Birthday Party

It’s here! Today I am sharing with you Stella’s first birthday party: my animal cookie, sprinkle-filled labor of love!

Are you maybe wondering where this animal cookie obsession came from?! Theres a story behind it actually!

When I was 9 months pregnant with my Stella, I had this day where all I could think about was those pink and white frosted Circus Animal Cookies. I hadn’t had them in a very long time so it was kind of weird that I suddenly wanted nothing but them but I could not get them out of my mind! This was probably the only time in my pregnancy I’d say I experienced those “pregnancy cravings”.

I was at work that day and my husband had driven me so I didn’t have a car to run to the store and find them and after work we had to rush and meet my family for pictures so no time to stop! That night I designed a birthday party invitation featuring the little treats but it didn’t quite fill the need, surprisingly ;) The next morning I still really wanted the cookies but we were rushing to get to my baby shower so we couldn’t make a stop. But then something magical happened!

I showed up to my shower that Malissa had put together and there on the favor table was a huge jar of animal cookies!! She had no idea I’d had this intense craving, she just decided they’d look cute at the party (and they did)!

Ever since then, I’ve had this fascination with those cute little cookies! Remember when I dressed Stella up as one for her first Halloween?! So what better theme than pink and white and sprinkles all over for her first birthday?!

I didn’t focus too much on the circus aspect of the party because, let’s face it, that’s been done before! But I did include a few circus/carnival elements like tickets on the tables and on these adorable confetti filled balloon wands! The invite was ticket shaped and there were tons of carnival games with prizes for the kids to play. You can purchase the invitation here.

Our friend Lisa makes those balloon wands (and any other adorable party decor you can dream up!) and they were the best little accent all throughout the party!

If you want the best invitations in the easiest possible way, order from Tiny Prints!! Seriously!! They have THE BEST selection of beautiful and adorable invites ready to fill in with your details. If you are making your own, like I did, its easy to customize them! They are the best quality and come all ready with envelopes and even custom stamps! To me, the invitation is the most important part of the party! That’s partly because I just love designing them but also because its the only part that everyone invited will see. If they can’t come, they still see the invite! So I think its so important to have it set the tone and theme for the whole party. All my graphics throughout matched the invite.

Tiny Prints also provided these adorable stickers that made the favors (bags of animal cookies and bags of animal cookie cake batter popcorn) so cute and special!

There were tons of games for the kids to play with tons of prizes! I got almost all my prizes from Dollar Tree which has a huge selection of fun stuff and made it super affordable!

There was other activities too like cookie decorating and my favorite part, the time capsule!

Another favorite part was the display of her monthly photos I took throughout the year! I was so fun to see them all lined up like that and really see her change right before your eyes. Can’t believe what a different little person she was a year ago!!

For food we did a kind of animal/circus/Stella theme with “elephant ear” fried bread (top with taco toppings for a Utah Navajo Taco or with jams, powdered sugar or honey butter mmmm!), veggies that looked like a lion, tight rope pasta salad and peanut butter and Stelly sandwiches.

Her cake was so much fun to make! I made a surprise inside polka dot cake and followed these awesome video lessons for the frosting. You can find the animal cookie toy DIY here.

Since it was an animal cookie party, we had a cookie buffet for the dessert (along with the cake of course!) There were over a dozen cookies to choose from and little baggies so guests could take them with. You can grab that cookie bunting banner here.

You can find the DIYs for that rhino punch game here, my animal cookie piñata here, the fun animal cookie marquee light here,  and the animal cookie clay necklaces that we gave away as prizes here. Also grab the free printable art seen behind the food table here, free animal cookie clip art here (perfect for making cupcake picks), and the DIY and free pattern for the sprinkle-y hats here! Whew! I told you I had a little animal cookie obsession right!?

My little girl was sooo excited about her personal cake. She full on laughed to herself about it and just smiled for like 10 minutes before even venturing in. When she did this is how she ate it! Face first!

LOL! So much fun! Theres still like a billion pictures so click through to see more!