My son had his 9th birthday party on Saturday and we went with a Safari theme. You will see why later. :)
I was excited to make the cake because I wanted to make the zebra striped cake! It worked out EXACTLY like I wanted it to!!
I am not really that good at cake decorating, but I have to admit that although this isn’t exactly what I wanted, I did pretty good. :) All that mattered was that the birthday boy LOVED it. :)
The bottom layer is the zebra cake with a vanilla pudding filling then topped with a vanilla whipped icing. The zebra edible cake tattoo is from Wilton. I purchased the full sheet and cut it down to fit the cake.
The top part of the cake was the popular one. :) It was a vanilla cake with chocolate pudding then caramel frosting. The caramel frosting was DELICIOUS! I used the Duncan Hines Frosting Creations with the Caramel Flavor Mix and I can’t rave about it enough! The guests loved the caramel frosting!
To make the giraffe spots, I used a full sheet of the Wilton’s Edible cake Tattoo in brown and cut out the shapes.
I usually do a “Favorite Things” theme for the boys’ party favors, but this time I opted to try something different and had 3 different party favors:
The first is a mini candy bar.
The flags for the favor boxes and the candy labels were printables from Pottery Barn.
The second party favor was a printed picture of the guests behind a cardboard cutout of a Jeep (purchased from Birthday Express).
Using a mini portable printer, I took pictures of guests then printed them during the party.
Here are our pictures with the Jeep. 
The final party favor was a pair of binoculars (purchased from Birthday Express).
I had DJ find some tree branches in the backyard for me then hung the branches with twine from a chandelier.
My husband kept shaking his head at me when I told him my idea. Turned out much better than we both thought, though. :)
The tags had hand written notes. One side said “Thank you for coming”…
…and the other said “DJ’s 9th Birthday”.
We served Lionade (lemonade) and Jungle Juice (Hawaiian Punch). These labels were from Pottery Barn as well.
My “famous” red velvet cake pops made an appearance in tiger colors.
The Jumper company (Aaron’s Jumpers) happened to have a jungle themed jumper that went perfect with our theme!
Speaking of jumpers, they dropped the jumper off on Friday night. SOOOO being the big kid that I am, I got in the jumper with my boys. 3 jumps in and I landed wrong and sprained the back of my knee. 2 hours at Urgent Care and a leg brace and crutches/ a cane later, I am now banned (by my husband) from jumping in any more jumpers! ;)
For the party, I opted to use my cane so I could have more mobility. Of course, the cane had to fit the party theme.
The reason behind our Safari theme is our special guests that came.
Pacific Animal Productions chauffeured our special guests and gave the party attendees a surprise treat!
The first friend that visited was a Fennec Fox.
Adorable, right???
Then an African Savannah Monitor was up next.
DJ even got a special kiss from this guy. (ewwww)
I wish I could keep this Wallaby in my backyard!!!!
The Kinkajou wanted nothing to do with our show. He preferred to be shy and in his cage.
The grand finale was a python! The kids LOVED this and weren’t even afraid of it when it slithered across their legs!
DJ is SO BEYOND happy about being able to hold the python.
Thank you to everyone that shared this special day with DJ. He had an awesome time and can’t stop talking about his party.
I shared this party theme on Skip to My Lou! Check out other craft ideas that others shared!
Pin It
