Real Parties: Lila’s Dol Celebration

Today’s Real Party feature is full of so much great DIY inspiration… not to mention the fabulous color palette and wonderfully contemporary vibe! It’s a colorful “Dol” (traditional Korean first birthday celebration) that Angie Bae created for her adorable daughter Lila.

There are so many meaningful & handcrafted details in this party… from the creative cookie invitations and fabulous paper globe centerpieces (representative of family members) to handmade candy pillars (see below), a shimmery cake inspired by Lila’s hanbok, and more!

Read on for lots more images and all the party details, as told by Angela…

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“For Lila’s dol/Korean first birthday party, the inspiration came easily when I first saw her hanbok (traditional Korean dress.) I loved the combination of pinks, white and lime green. They reminded me of Lila’s bubbly and happy personality, so we incorporated them into all the party details.

Invitations/Cookies
Along with invitations from Tiny Prints, we included a set of “button” sugar cookies in pink and green from Meli & Angi. Guests either received a set that read lila/1 or chook/dol (1st birthday) in Korean characters.

Cookies were placed in a plastic case and filled with white tissue shred for cushioning.

Elevator Photo Greeting
Since the party was on the 4th floor, we printed out photos of Lila and taped them in the elevators to greet guests. It reads “Oh! You made it. I’m on the 4th floor!” I love Lila’s “oooh!” expression in this photo:

Photo Wall
When you enter the space, there is a blank wall so we filled it with large sized photos of Lila. They were from different months in her first year, and displayed like a gallery setting. We used 3M temporary hooks so we wouldn’t damage the walls/paint.

What Will Lila Pick? Board
The “doljabee” is a traditional element of the Dol. Items are laid out in front of the baby for her to choose from. The item that she picks will foretell her path in life. Money = wealth. Pencil = scholar. Thread = long life. Rice = never go hungry. We also added in a Mic = musical and an Abacus = intelligence.

Guests wrote their names on ballots and put them in the pocket they thought Lila would choose. From the selected item, we randomly chose guests to win prizes. Lila picked the abacus first, followed by the rice.

Centerpieces & Banner
These paper globes were made by following Heather Bailey’s template. Each centerpiece includes globes of varying height to represent our family of 3.

The “planter” is a white bakery box with green scrapbooking paper and pink ribbon arranged to look like 3 stripes of varying widths. The “stems” were trimmed down wooden dowels (purchased at Home Depot) and bbq skewers wrapped in green tissue paper. We stood them in floral foam and topped each planter with green crinkle cut paper shred (from Michaels).

The globes themselves were made from various scrapbooking papers found on Amazon. For Lila’s birthday banner, we used the same scrapbooking paper to have consistent colors.

Birthday Cake
Lila’s “hanbok” cake was made by Ruth Shin of Brooklyn Cake. It was strawberry shortcake with buttercream filling, and so delicious! We love that she was able to translate Lila’s hanbok into a cake… especially the ribbon detail.

Go-Ims
The birthday table traditionally has go ims (pillars) on display. To personalize them, I used red beans and Korean rice puffs to make: 1) a mouse because Lila was born in the year of the mouse, 2) “Sora”, her Korean name and 3) “chook dol” in Korean characters.

I also made 2 more using white, green and pink Mentos in stripes and flower designs.

In front, we have plates of fruit and dduk (Korean rice cakes) which later get packaged for guests to take home.

Dduk To Go
To package the dduk for guests, we used plain white take out boxes and printed out thank you labels with pink stripes from Avery.

Lollipop Garden
Guests were also welcome to take lollipops from this “garden“. All the materials used to make it were found at Michaels – a wooden CD crate, floral foam, green crinkle cut paper shred, individual letters that spell out her first and middle/Korean name, paint and craft glue.

We are so glad that Mary Jane Photography and some of our very talented friends (Albert, Sandy, Susan and Sam) were able to help us remember Lila’s dol through photos. I still can’t believe Lila’s 1st year has come and gone. It really did fly by, but I remember every moment like it just happened.

I love you Lila!”

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Thanks again to Angie for the fabulous party inspiration!