Dinosaur 1st Birthday Party - The Best Dinosaur Party DIYs

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A first birthday is so special.

Your little baby has learned so much the past year and let’s face it, you made it through your first year as a parent!

Little O just turned one and I can’t wait to share his birthday party details with you – including my favorite dinosaur party DIYs!

Table of Contents

Theme

Our birthday theme was dinosaurs.

“Stomp, chomp, let’s have some fun! O is turning one!”

Our little one has a favorite dinosaur book and when I mentioned needing a party theme – my husband instantly spoke up.

I’ll be honest, most party decisions were my own, but I think my husband is living vicariously through our son. {He’s a major dino fan… think Ross from Friends.}

So dinosaurs it was!

And as a boy mom, I was all over it.

Invitations

I ordered O’s birthday invites from Etsy!

I could definitely have made my own, but these were too cute to pass up.

The invitations were just a digital download, which meant they were super easy to personalize.

I changed the wording just a little bit to fit our little man and his party.

*These cute invitations are currently on sale for 25% off!

After the invitations were done, I ordered them on cardstock from Amazon. They arrived so fast, and I loved them! Don’t forget to order an extra to save in your baby book.

Thank You Cards

*This portion of the post is sponsored by The Invite Lady – I received free thank you cards in exchange for a review of the cards. All views are my own, honest opinions.*

What? Your baby doesn’t write thank you cards? Yeah, ours either. So mommy and daddy wrote them!

To show thanks to all our sweet family members who came to O’s party I found these adorable thank you cards. They fit our theme and worked perfectly.

The Invite Lady has so many designs to choose from, that you can’t go wrong. From baby showers, to birthdays invitations and thank you cards – you’ll be all set.

I found myself browsing the site even after I found the cards I wanted because there were so many cute designs!

The invites came carefully packaged so all were in excellent condition – no tears, bent corners, discoloration, etc.

The colors were bright, fun, and appeared just as they had online. All we needed to do was fold the cards in half, write the notes, and send them off! Talk about easy – they even included the envelopes!

The customer service was also phenomenal.

These other cute dino thank you cards were accidentally sent to me by mistake {so cute, but just a little too feminine for the look I was going for}. Amazingly, the Invite Lady sent the right ones to me within just a few days!

Decorations – DIY

I was all about the DIY decorations for O’s birthday.

I made my own party hats, a large “one” balloon piece, leaf garland, and cake and cupcake toppers. Y

ou definitely don’t have to be as ~~crazy~~ crafty as this, but DIY-ing a few projects can do two BIG things for your party.

You’ll make it SO much more personal (ex: I created special colored party hats for a couple girly girls I knew would be in attendance)
You’ll likely eliminate some costs.

Dinosaur Party Hats

Thankfully I have a husband who’s ~~a bear for punishment~~ always willing to help.

Together, we created these adorable dinosaur party hats via a Pinterest picture I had found.

Simply take your construction paper {hot dog direction} and round the bottom corners.

Then roll the top corner in to create your party hat shape.

Hot glue the corners in place.

Next, cut out your dinosaur spikes leaving a 1 cm wide strip at the bottom.

Fold the strip right where the spikes start so your spikes stank up.

Then use your hot glue to secure the spikes to the hat. Finally, use your small hole puncher (or hot glue) to tie (or secure) your elastic string in place. Done!

Here’s what you need: scissors, construction paper, a hot glue gun (I love my low temp glue gun), a hole puncher, and some elastic string

“One” Decor

Now this is a Pinterest find that I’ve seen over and over again – and couldn’t wait for a reason to try it out.

Would you believe that finding a cheap hula hoop was the hardest part of this whole project?

Be sure to check your local dollar store – that’s where we scored this beauty – you can always spray paint the hula hoop to your desired color.

Next, blow up your “one” balloon and tie it in place inside the hula hoop.

Now start adding your other balloons around the outside of the hula hoop with string varying your colors, size, and placement.

Hello, beautiful!

Here’s what you need: hula hoop, “one” balloon, balloons, string (I used the same elastic string from the dino party hats. However, after a little trial and error I would recommend just using regular string.)

Leaves Garland

These were super easy to make.

Grab your cardstock and cut!

I used a pencil to freehand my first leaf to make sure it was what I wanted before cutting. Once you have your desired shape, pile that paper together and cut multiple at once!

Vary your greens, your sizes, and your shapes for a more “natural” look.

Can paper look natural?

Sure, right?

But it turned out pretty neat.

Next, attach the leaves to a piece of string or a streamer with glue, tape, or a stapler.

Here’s what you need: scissors, green cardstock (or construction paper), string or streamer, tape, stapler, or glue.