Our daughters first bee day party was so fun to put together! I absolutely love celebrating birthdays and I love celebrating birthdays cheaply even more!
This post is all about a DIY first bee day party that you can throw together with a few trips to the Dollar Tree!
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First Bee Day
What will you need to throw a diy first bee day?
While I do absolutely love throwing parties for my kids, I’m also not willing to spend a fortune. So, I’ll help you throw an adorable first bee day for your baby almost entirely with Dollar Tree supplies.
First Bee Day Outfit
Obviously, the most important part of any party is what you’re going to wear! And it’s all the more fun when you are dressing your sweet little one year old!
Sadly, I thrifted my daughters first birthday dress and could not findit to link. But i did some searching and found the most adorable bee tutu that comes in so many different color combinations and patterns. And I also found this incredible little suit that comes in mustard yellow pants and bow tie!
First Bee Day Decorations
For any themed party, the decorations are a huge part of setting the scene! That being said, I am a huge fan of easy diy decorations! Partys get expensive fast and decorations are one easy place to save a little money.
I used paper, string, popsicle sticks, and a few items from the Dollar Tree for our and got so many compliments on how it turned out!
Table Decorations
Table Cloth
The basis of my table decorations was a simple plastic yellow table cloth. I got two at Dollar Tree and layered them on top of each other so it wasn’t see through and was more durable throughout the party day.
Popsicle Stick Honey Comb
All you need to make this honeycomb table decoration is popsicle sticks and a hot glue gun. It probably took me around 30 minutes to throw together and cost me about $3 to make. You could easily make multiple if you are having a large party and want one for each table too!
Flowers
I created these flower bouquets out of four bundles of flowers I got at Dollar Tree. Then, I just threw them into mason jars I already had! They make super easy, simple, and cheap decor alongside the honey comb.
Honey Bee Tree Game
I grew up playing Kerplunk ALL THE TIME. So, I was so excited to find this honey bee tree version of it! It was a super fun activity for people to play while we waited for everyone to arrive and it looked so cute with the bee theme! Plus, you get to keep it when the party is done and add it to your game closet!
If you have a large party and want a couple different games, here are a few other cute ones to keep with the bee theme!
High Chair Decorations
This was quite literally the simplest thing to make but it made some absolutely adorable pictures! For the high chair banner, I used twine, a sharpie, brown craft paper, and one set of fake flowers from Dollar Tree. But if your not the crafty type and would rather buy a banner, you can order this adorable one from Amazon.
And the wall is nothing more than posterboard and a 1 shaped balloon, both from Dollar Tree once again. I would guess this amount of space would need about 3 pieces of posterboard since I used about 7-8 on the entire wall.
Other Decor
The Honeycomb Wall
As mentioned above, the entire honeycomb wall took me around 7-8 pieces of poster board. The hexagons were traced from the size of the hexagon flower picture frame you can see on the right wall (our way to honor the baby we miscarried). But you can just make one hexagon for a template and then trace all the other ones based on that one. I just drew on the bees with a black sharpie but you could also use these big bee stickers if you aren’t super crafty.
My First Bee Day Banner
It’s super easy to make your own banner with this DIY kit. I chose to just write the letters on with a sharpie but you can also opt to get large letter stickers or use a letter stencil.
First Bee Day Food
First Bee Day Smash Cake
Obviously the most important component to any first birthday is the smash cake. This one was honestly so easy to make and super cute too! Just make sure you learn from my mistakes and don’t take your cake out too early if it’s a summer time birthday…it will definitely start to melt.
To make the hive, I made two of Then I cut the “rounded muffin top” off one and left it on the other, stacked, them. and then iced the whole thing.
- Make two of these 4 inch cake pans and fill them about 3/4 full. You are intentionally overfilling them to essentially turn them into something looking like large muffins.
- After cooking and cooling the cakes, leave one cake rounded and cut the top off the other. Stack the rounded one on top of the flat one, putting frosting in between.
- Put a thin coat of yellow frosting all over the whole cake.
- Use a medium sized circle pipping tip and circle the cake with yellow frosting.
- Use black icing to create a circle “door” to the hive and then add any dashed lines you want for the bees. I only did one and liked it in the shape of a heart.
- Finally, add your bees. I decided to use Wilton edible bumble bees, which you can find both on Amazon and Walmart. HOWEVER, I do recommend taking off the bees before handing off the smash cake to your baby. They are very hard to chew. We decided to take them off and hand them out to older kids at the party beforehand 🙂
- Add your candle!
Bee Hive Donut Hive
I decided against a cake for guests this year and instead opted for donuts! This hive took two dozen donuts to make and is a mix of glazed, blueberry, and chocolate donuts! You need 1-2 chocolate donuts for the hive opening (I cut one into 1/3s). Then the rest you can place as needed and cut into halves or thirds to help round out your “hive.”
Strawberry bees
These strawberry bees were insanely easy to make and looked so cute sitting out at our first bee day party! Simply dip your strawberry in white chocolate that you add a few drops of yellow food coloring to. Then add the stripes with either black icing or melted dark chocolate! I personally recommend the dark chocolate option cause my black icing did start to run very quickly with a summer time party.
Fruit Kabobs
There are tons of cute ways to do fruit kabobs for a first bee day party. You can use a flower cookie cutter to cut watermelon or pineapple flowers and then use green grapes for a stem. You can alternate between pineapple and purple grapes to make “bee” kabobs. Or you can just make fun rainbow kabobs. We chose to make rainbow kabobs as a way to incorporate the baby we miscarried before our daughter was born.
We chose to make rainbow kabobs as a way to incorporate the baby we miscarried before our daughter was born. It was a subtle way for us to honor her while keeping the primary focus on our 1 year old’s party.
Drinks
I personally am a big fan of keeping it simple when it comes to party drinks. I just picked up a double drink dispenser on Amazon and it came with the holder and the cute chalkboard signs!
If you decide to go for lemonade in one of your dispenser, you can also use black streamers or paper to make stripes on the dispenser! That was my plan….but I totally forgot. So, hopefully somebody else can actually benefit from the idea.
The Main Course
Once I broke down the cost of everything to cook a meal for my guests, it came out WAY cheaper to just order pizza! Plus, doing this helped make the day so much more relaxing and enjoyable for me!
So my encouragement to you is to do whatever is easy and whatever your child loves! If they love pizza (as most children do), don’t stress over some big fancy meal! Order the pizza! The most important thing is that both you and your child get to enjoy the day, so don’t do anything that creates unnecessary stress.
First Bee Day Activities
A bee hunt is a great activity if you know you will have a large age range at your party. We had a ton of fun and it was so simple to make.
I just drew on the stripes with a sharpie and glued on googley eyes and pipe cleaner wings! Then, just fill them with candy or fun little toys!
First Bee Day Invitations
I personally did not send out invitations for our first bee day party. But there are tons of adorable options on Etsy. This is one of my favorites on Etsy.
This post was all about first bee day party ideas that are easy to DIY, budget friendly, and oh so cute! I hope they help you celebrate your little one without spending a fortune!
-Beautifully Busy Mom
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Meet the Author
This post was written by Monica, a mom of two who loves taking every opportunity to celebrate her kids and make birthdays extra special.
