Luca Turns ONE!
Luca’s obsession with Toy Story quickly became my inspiration for his birthday. I wanted him to enjoy his birthday (as much as a one year old can lol), so I knew seeing his favorite characters on his big day would make him so happy! Since it was his first birthday, I def. wanted to do the decor a bit more minimal & “babyish”. The traditional toy story parties have a lot of primary colors and I knew I didn’t want to do that. What helped me alot was creating a pinterest board and making my own inspo collage to stick by when purchasing/making any decor.
This was my inspiration for his party:
I created this on Canva and found images on Pinterest and the two images on the right are from an instagram account @corneliadesigns.co
Balloon Arch: DIY Kit from a local company called Poppy + Posh
Custom Cookies & Pretzels: local baker Enchanted Delicacies
Smashcake: Made it myself
I’ve linked everything else on my Amazon Storefront and everything else that isn’t linked is either a DIY or can’t find the link to. What was so hard about doing this Toy Story theme is that there are A LOT of details to the movie that I could’ve done, but I really wanted to be as minimal and budget friendly as possible. Creating a mood board really helped me maintain my focus and only did the decor I really wanted. Some fun things that I forgot to take pictures of were:
Kids Activity Table- “Create your own forky” Station with a bucket of Organic juice boxes and water + Toy Story Coloring books
Photobooth- Photobooth props (linked on my amazon storefront) + DIY streamer backdrop
Pinata- Buzz Pinata filled with different toy story goodies from Five Below + candy
Advice to parents planning their baby’s first birthday:
Def. make sure your baby take a nap before the party!
Try to hire a photographer (I did not since I am one, but even I forgot photos to take of family since I was overwhelmed with hosting) or atleast take photos of everything before everyone arrives and assign family photos to a specific friend/family member
Sing happy birthday early! Waiting till the end to sing Luca happy birthday wasn’t the best idea. He started to get sleepy/overwhelmed and wasn’t in the best mood
Keep things as simple as possible. I know we want to go all out for our babies, but truthfully speaking don’t stress yourself out! I said I wanted to bake the cakes myself and all the desserts and a bunch of DIYs…until I quickly realized how much work that would be. I did do a few DIYs, baked his smash cake and had my best friend help me with the main cake. Everything else I ended up using a vendor/ordered to take the load off of me
Budget/purchase little by little. I think this helped a lot, instead of going crazy all at once! It helped to realize what I really needed and what was missing vs buying all at once.
Once you sing happy birthday….ENJOY the party! As soon as we sang to Luca, the host in me left and I just wanted to enjoy the party with him! The day went by so fast and I couldn’t believe his first birthday (something I looked forward to for so long) ended so quickly.
Thank you for stopping by! Please comment with any questions and I hope this helped some parents out! I can’t believe a year of parenthood actually flew by! It’s been an adventure for sure and I am so in love with my son and our family. It’s been a true blessing to witness him grow every day. Stay tuned for a one year PP blog post and video coming soon xx