A Roarsome 1st Birthday

It was our son's first birthday recently and I just had to post this event, before I posted all of the Christmas festivities! It was by coincidence that dinosaurs formed part of our little boy's first year, so I decided to go with a dinosaur themed first birthday party.

I was put on bed rest during the time of the preparations, but luckily my mom came to the rescue - I gave my ideas and my mom did most of the baking. We decided to keep it small and invite only close family, this was due to COVID-19 as well as me being on bed rest - I'm not capable to entertain too many people at once at the moment. 

For this event, I couldn't resist getting a theme appropriate outfit - ONE-A-SAURUS with his name printed below. Our little boy looked so cute! To fit with the theme, I created a gave like feel as the guests entered, with decorations I made myself. As the guests entered it read 'Naam se Grot' (aka Name's Cave). Our boy's name was printed and pasted on black paper, then I created a mosaic look with leftover coloured cardboard paper, the cave (or 'grot') part was made out of printed letters, covered with parts of an egg box as well as dried out leaves. We also have two dinosaur blankets which I used to cover part of the curtains, with one side serving as the gift table.

I also created dinosaur shadows from coloured cardboard paper, to add a bit more dinosaur to the entrance. These were made out of dinosaur printouts I used on the food table, traced and cut out. So easy to make.

Next up - the Roar of Fame! I really looked forward to this. During our son's first year, I took a photo of him every single day. I decided to use these photos to create a Roar (or Wall) of Fame. I also included the photos I took during the pregnancy, displaying the fruit per week as the pregnancy progressed. This was really special, and all the guests could see how our tiny baby has grown into a big boy over 365 days!

For the Roar of Fame part, I coloured our's son's name with crayons, using the wall as a table to create a textured look. The 'Roar' was created with sand, rocks and weeds, 'of' was decorated with grass, and 'Fame' was decorated with leaves, twigs and acorns (from out acorn tree). All to give it a wilderness feel. 

Another decoration I could prepare was the dinosaur balloons. It was so much fun to create the dinosaur parts out of cardboard paper. I used double sided sellotape to stick the parts to the balloon - although once stuck, you cannot remove without the balloon popping, so be careful when applying the tape. I decided on five balloons - a red T-Rex, a green Stegosaurus, a blue Brontosaurus, a yellow Triceratops and an orange Pterodactyl. 

I also made dinosaur themed paper plates, cups and straws. The main reason was because I couldn't find anything (affordable and cute) that I liked, so I decided to tap into my creative side. I bought small yellow plates for the snacks, big blue square plates for lunch (which was plain and simple boerewors rolls) and orange paper cups. I used a variety of colours for the straws (still left over from my 80's themed birthday - click here).

I used 20 different dinosaur images for the plates, and reused it for the cups and straws, but just smaller in size. Each paper plate received a different dinosaur, with one cloud and two pieces of grass each. I then covered the plates with DC fix (or adhesive film) to prevent the food from damaging the pictures (or accidentally eating the paper). On the paper cups I added two small dinosaurs on opposite sides, with four colourful dots in between, two large and small of different colours. I added an even smaller dinosaur on each of the colourful straws - see below. Again, what fun!!

Welcome to my dino-roar table! For the wall decoration, my son and I made foot and hand art - what a mission if I might add. Each letter of his name and the number one, was created using one colour and prints of his feet or hands. We also bought plastic leaves as decoration, added a few balloons and hanged the remaining dinosaur shadows. My poor sister and brother-in-law worked very hard to get all the decorations up in time. I also printed dinosaur images and stuck onto kebab sticks, to serve as dinosaur flower arrangements. Lastly I bought small red, and green and white polka dot serviettes to add a bit of colour to the table.

Now for the snacks my mom worked so hard on - and what a success! Thank you Mom! I gave my mom a few ideas of what I was thinking of doing and she got the creative juices flowing. I printed an image of dinosaurs for each snack with a description thereof. The snacks on the table:

• Three types of maize and corn crisps:
  • Spinosaurus toenails: 3-D triangle crisps.
  • Stegosaurus scales: Flat triangle chips.
  • Velociraptor bones: Cheesy hardened puffs.
• Triceratops crisps: Rice Krispies treats in the form of Triceratops, coloured orange with a bit of white chocolate coloured purple to create the main or mantle.
• Pterodactyl egg nests: Salty pretzels coated in dark chocolate, made into small nests. My mom found these amazing green, red and white mini eggs, which we added to each nest.
• Mammoth sweat: Green fuzzy soft drink.
• Mammoth saliva: Red fuzzy soft drink.
• Dino rock paintings: Coloured white chocolate, poured into dinosaur moulds.
• Brontosaurus foam: Meringues in the form of Brontosaurus dinosaurs.
• Tyrannosaurus Rex feet: My mom knows a lady that makes these delicious cookies with icing.
• Parasaurolophus swamp: Jelly cups (the one thing I could make), comprised red, orange and yellow jelly, topped with crushed chocolate.​
• Dino fossils: My mom found these cute dinosaur marshmallows.
• Apatosaurus heads: Marshmallows cut into the form of a dinosaur head, dipped in purple coloured white chocolate, with cute eyes, noses and scales.

Although the table was very sweet and there were more adults that children, I just had to do this for our son's birthday, even though we now sit with a lot of left over sweets.

I was so chuffed with myself when creating the dinosaur cupcake wrappers. I used five different cardboard paper colours, and decided on five of the dinosaurs I printed for the plates, which I traced and cut out. I stuck them together with thick double sided tape, so the dinosaurs create a 3-D effect. My mom baked the cupcakes and decorated with four colours of frosting - blue, green, purple orange. I then placed liquorice cut into triangles on top of the cupcakes and placed inside the cupcake wrappers. Thank you sis for cutting so many triangles for me! 

Finally the cake! This cake was made for our son to smash, eat, or do whatever he wanted - as it's tradition for a first birthday (in my opinion - my husband will differ). My mom baked the cake and shaped it into a Triceratops. I added the sweets to the cake. Finger biscuits for the main or mantle, blue liquorice sweets for colour and humps on the back, baby friendly baked puffs for the two horns, a wafer cut into a triangle for the nose, a marshmallow cut to create the eyes with black food colouring representing the pupils, red liquorice sweets cut into small pieces to create a mouth, and mini marshmallows cut in half to represent the tows.

In the end, our son barely ate the cake, he ate one finger biscuit and a puff, smeared his name written in icing and decided to crawl to the steps. At least we have lots of cake in the freezer for those evenings we run out of dessert.

Thank you to my husband, mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law for baking and decorating the place on my behalf. It did not go unnoticed!

The Invitation