Luca is One! Wild One First Birthday Party

All the details of Luca’s Wild One Safari Themed First Birthday

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I can’t believe our little man is already one! What a year this has been. Luca learned a lot and so did mommy and daddy 🙂 Though we didn’t have the normal first birthday party we might have if there was no Covid, we still wanted to celebrate our Luca man turning one in a fun and festive way. We had a Wild One safari themed birthday party for him just for us and his grandparents, and he had the best time!

Luca wore this super soft Wild One tee and these neutral palm print shorts. He wore this “1” crown I found on Amazon for opening presents and it was so cute! It ties in the back so fits all head sizes. I wore this gorgeous off-the-shoulder dress to fit in with the Wild One safari theme. Marc wore these shorts {a favorite of his because of how stretchy and comfortable they are while still looking sleek} and white henley tee.

Sharing all of the DIY decor details here for everything I used to make his Wild One safari party come to life. This was my first time ever making a balloon garland. I was pretty nervous about it, I won’t lie. But it was actually easier than I expected! This kit that I purchased as a base for our DIY balloon garland came with balloon garland string {you can buy just the string here if you’d like}. This made it so much easier to just pull all the balloon ties through the string.

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Here are a couple tips for making a balloon garland:

• Only pull regular size balloons and larger accent balloons through the balloon garland string. Use the small ones as accents once the garland is finished by sticking them on with tape or glue dots.
• Vary the order of the balloons if you want a more random look.
• Though it gets hard, try not to skip many of the holes in the balloon garland string. BUT, I do recommend skipping one where you plan to bend or curve the garland.
• Use removable hooks like these on your wall where you plan to hang the balloon garland and tie clear fishing string or white sheer ribbon around the garland to loop onto the hooks.

For the balloon garland, I used this balloon garland kit to start me off. Then I added these leopard print balloons, these giraffe print foil balloons, and these metallic gold balloons. I liked that they were a slightly different shade than the gold in the kit for a nice effect. After I finished building the balloon garland, I added some of the smaller accent balloons and a few of these artificial leaves sparsely throughout to bring in even more of a fun safari feel.

I placed these gold Wild One foil balloons below the balloon arch. This was the backdrop for Luca’s smash cake and present unwrapping, and I love how it came out! We placed Luca’s high chair in front of the backdrop, and I used this tassel garland and ONE garland to decorate it. For a tip on how to easily hang a high chair banner, check out my Reel here! I used these small removable adhesive hooks under the high chair tray opening to the sides and was able to quickly tie both high chair banners on. It literally took less than a minute!

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To really bring the theme out more, and add to the decor in an easy, inexpensive way, I wrapped all of Luca’s presents in safari and animal themed gift wrap. This animal print wrapping paper from Amazon is great quality and more matte {not shiny} so looks really classy. I used this animal print tissue paper and this palm leaf print tissue paper in kraft paper gift bags. This gold striped cotton string and some gold bows finished off the presents. I picked up this adorable round alphabet rug for Luca and used it as his gift unwrapping spot. It made for really cute photos in front of our Wild One backdrop!

We got Luca some new books for his birthday. Check out my post on the 10 Top Baby & Toddler Books here for all of Luca’s favorites {and mine too}!

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Let him eat cake!

Lastly, I made a Wild One safari themed smash cake for our Luca man. Well, I actually did not make the cake part myself because I knew I wouldn’t really have the time. Instead, I ordered a plain yellow cake with white flat frosting from Shop Rite for $7.95 and used that as my base. Highly recommend doing this and saving yourself the baking and icing part!

Check out my Reel here showing how I decorated his safari cake if you want to see all the details! I used this cheetah/leopard print stencil and gold cake spray mist to make animal print marks up the side of the cake and across the top. Then I piped some homemade buttercream frosting {click here for a simple recipe} around the bottom for the gold sugar sprinkles to stick to. I used a small spoon to slowly drizzle the gold sugar sprinkles around the base. The idea was to make it look kind of like the terrain on a safari. The best part is it doesn’t have to be perfect at all because safaris aren’t perfect! I picked up some faux greenery sprigs {like these, these and these} to place along the base of the cake. Some gold animals {I used my favorites, a giraffe and elephant} add a fun little scene to the cake. This raw wood cake stand is the one I used, and it looks really nice and realistic.

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This Wild One cake topper was the perfect way to bring the whole theme together. You can use my code BECCA20OFF at this Etsy shop for a 20% discount! Our baby milestone cards are also from this shop and linked here! When we sang Happy Birthday to Luca, we replaced the Wild One cake topper with this adorable gold number 1 candle.

I hope you love our Wild One birthday as much as Luca and I did and maybe even recreate some of the decor for your own Wild One or Safari birthday party!

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