Yesterday was my baby’s first birthday. I started planning her party a couple months ago and was excited to bring our family and friends together to celebrate. Given the current situation, my husband and I made the decision last week to cancel the party. It made us sad but we knew it was the right thing to do, especially because of his work as a doctor.

Rather than shift my mindset to a negative place, I decided that no matter what, we were going to stay positive and celebrate Hailey with a homemade party. I immediately grabbed my Cricut and began ideating how I could use things I had around the house to craft fun birthday décor. I feel it’s so important for all of us right now to find some sense of normalcy as we stay at home.

I started with her cake

One of my hobbies is watching cake-making videos (cakesbae makes some amazing ones on Instagram if you’re ever interested to watch). It’s actually kind of an obsession. It was my dream to have an amazing smash cake for Hailey. I hired a very talented woman in Park City, highaltitudeparkcity, to make her cake (I mean her cakes are incredible!!), but like us, she had to cancel to take extra precaution. So, I decided I would tackle her cake myself—and to be clear, I haven’t made a cake since a friend’s party in college… it’s been a long time. I decided to go with a unicorn theme because Hailey already has a bunch of unicorn themed clothing to match!

Here are the supplies I used to make the cake: 

Click here if you want to make the project.

First, I made the cake and let it cool for 3 hours (that’s critical so the frosting doesn’t melt). Then I started crafting the unicorn décor for the cake. I decided to give the cake a unicorn horn, two ears, one-cut paper flowers (that are easy because I’m not great at paper flowers to be honest!), and two felt eyelashes. It took me the longest to figure out everything I wanted to create for the cake but after I figured it out, Cricut made it easy for me to cut everything in less than 20 minutes. Once the cake was completely cool, I frosted it (I used a butter knife because it spread easiest but still wasn’t perfect) and then added a little extra icing décor. Then I assembled the unicorn crafts and put them on the cake:

  • The horn was made with a party hat image. All you do is fold it, hot glue it together. Finally, hot glued the “1” paper circle to the horn.
  • For the ears, I just hot glued the bottom together so that it folded and then stuck them into the cake. Very simple.
  • For the paper flowers, the machine cuts out a spiral and then you roll it, and hot glued the bottom.
  • Finally, I cut the eye lashes out of black felt and laid them on top of the frosting.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and it gave me a tremendous sense of pride to say, “I did it myself!”

Then there was the high chair banner

I decided to keep the décor simple. I made a “ONE” banner for her high-chair. Banners are one of my favorite things to make with my Cricut because they’re easy and you can make them a thousand different ways.

Here are the supplies I used to make the banner:

Click here if you want to make the project.

This banner took under 10 minutes to make and was a perfect fit for her high chair (and it only lasted on her high chair for about 2 minutes after because she pulled it off… but it was fun while it lasted!).

Who needs party hats?

I put Hailey in her special party skirt and matching headband and then realized, my husband and I needed something to match her! I decided to make party hats, another super easy project that you can make with your Cricut. I searched for different party hat images (make sure you filter by 3-D) and a bunch popped up.

Here are the supplies I used to make the party hats:

Click here if you want to make the project.

I chose a one-cut image and then decided to add a little more personalization. To keep in theme with the unicorn party, I added unicorn ears to the party hats. I actually used an image of a petal to make it into the unicorn ear (I simply folded the bottom and hot glued so it made it look more like a horse ear).

That’s another reason I love Design Space images, I can find almost anything I’m looking for! The mesh ribbon came in handy because I actually used it two ways. I used it to tie the hats and made pom-poms for the top and stuck down with hot glue. I think they turned out really cute!

Needless to say, we had a great time together and even though none of our family and friends were there in-person, we had some great FaceTime conversations and Hailey had more than one “happy birthday” song that night. It also made me reflect and truly appreciate the time we spend together and the importance of prioritizing our health and the health of everyone around us.

I hope this story brought a smile to your face and a little bit of inspiration as you’re thinking of ways to craft at home. Now, I’m off to think of other things I have around the house that I can cut on my Cricut!