Our UNO-themed First Birthday

I've been so excited about Sam turning one year old since about, well, July.  And I came up with a brilliant and (what I thought was) original idea of using UNO cards and having an Uno themed birthday party--you know, since Sam was turning 1 and uno means 1 in Spanish. (I was shocked by how many people did not immediately put this together.)

After I came up with my BRILLIANT idea, I, of course, turned to Pinterest for inspiration, which is where I quickly learned it was not an original idea.  So I scoured the different pins and came up with some original ideas of my own and ended up having a really fun party with friends and family.

So the following is the culmination of a bunch of fun ideas.  Maybe someday you'll want to throw an Uno party for your baby! 

Sam's homemade invites printed on photo paper and mailed as postcards.

Sam's birthday banner.  A card for every month of the first year of his life.  A lot of work to make, but totally worth it!

A wreath I made for the door with Uno cards!

I made this garland from miniature Uno cards.  I love the tiny cards!

We cleared the cars out of the garage to make room for extra seating and had a different Uno games on the tables.

These are the fun, tiny, Uno cards.

I made Sam a custom 1-card/Uno-card shirt.  It looked pretty cute.

I made a spice cake and a funfetti cake and decorated them to look like cards.  So fun!

Sammy's enjoying his first tastes of cake.  I think he was a fan!

I went a little crazy with the color theme...note the bottle cap colors.  My mom also help me recreate some fruit trays that I saw on another blog that looked similar to a wild card.  We used strawberries, blueberries, green grapes, and cantaloupe (which is not yellow, but more edible for babies than pineapple.)  I also put out some bananas that were a big hit!  And we ate a Mexican-ish chili that I tied into the theme by claiming that since it was Mexican-ish, it went with Uno.

We had a photo booth that was fun, though next time I will use a sheet rather than a plastic table cloth.  It was...a little wrinkly.

And to end the party, the kiddos who came picked from a rubber ball or a punch ball balloon (that of course, were in the yellow-blue-red-green color scheme) as a party favor!

Hope you enjoyed seeing these ideas.  And if you were present, hope you enjoyed the party.  All three of us had a great time!  I'm ready to start planning for next year.