Planning Avery's 1st Birthday - Part 1: Cake Design

Avery's 1st birthday is coming up in May!  I've sent out the save the date email to our family and a handful of close friends.  Now it's time to decide what I want the cake to look like.  This will help guide my decisions for the invitations, centrepieces and other details.

I always start my cake design process by looking at pictures online.  Last night I typed "girl birthday cake" into Google images which had over 3 million results and then I did another search for "girl 1st birthday cake".  Aesthetically, I'm drawn to simple, pretty & sophisticated designs.  I'm not a huge fan of cutesy - this is slightly at odds with choosing a design for a baby since most people assume cutesy is the best way to go. 

As I scrolled through the images, I saved the ones that I liked best (there were 10-15) and then showed them to DH.  He vetoed a couple I thought were really pretty, but the one we decided on together is perfect - it's from pinkcakebox.com:

I love the slightly non-traditional colour scheme and the use of simple flowers and butterflies (notice that there are simple butterflies as well as more realistic ones as well) that have a graphic look to them.  Another element I love is the organic pile of flowers and butterflies on the top of the cake.

The next step is deciding the design for the invitations.  Stay tuned for Step 2 :)

- Jacs