Dinosaur Party

Dinosaur Party

My boys Memphis (now 5)  and Fox (now 2) had a joint Birthday Party. This Dinosaur Party was literally a year in the planning. I think it was maybe a week after his last party (The Pirate Party) that we begun thinking, and planning. Whilst I wasn't literally doing things for it the entire year, there were lots of small purchases made along the way, and crafty things made in advance.

This picture doesnt do this Dinosaur justice- this guy was huge, 6 feet tall! My wonderful hubby made him!

I googled diy wooden dinosaurs and found an Awesome app with step by step instructions. I had the template printed out on huge paper, then spent 2 days cutting it all out. I actually had temporary loss of feeling in my thumb for 2 weeks!

After all the pieces were cut out hubby spent many nights out in the shed with the jigsaw cutting out the wood pieces.

Then we had to have a Dinosaur Hunt- I made Fossilized Dinosaurs, and thought Binoculars would be a  great accessory. However I couldn't find any cheap enough so started saving months before all our empty toilet rolls. Above was the first one I made. Toilet rolls, coloured card, glue stick, sticky tape, electrical tape for the ends and some ribbon, Super easy, but if I never have to make another set of binoculars it would be too soon! Memphis was pretty stoked. After 23 of them I was soooo over it.I made half orange and the other half green.

       

The kids smashing their fossils to break out the Dinosaurs hidden inside!

  The Goodie Bags.
I printed and cut out about 30 of these Dino foot prints. 21 of them for the Party Favor bags, and the rest to place around the house.I had planned on using the scrap paper to make my own confetti to put into the pinata. As one might imagine it's an awful job to do and I was over that in 2 seconds flat.

I still cannot get over how expensive flat bottom brown paper bags are. I ended up getting these off ebay. I bought a pack of normal bags from woolies in case I had extra kids/siblings turn up. Luckily I was spot on for numbers.

Inside the bags I had the usual, some lollies, annoying blower thing, dinosaur tattoo, home made Dino Chocolates, A Hatching Dinosaur- see below, and a Dino paddle toy.

 You may remember my post a while back about the playdoh I made? well I put the recipe to good use and made some more. I thought they would be perfect favors

I had little stickers made on vistaprint that said "Roar, thanks for partying with us, Memphis & Fox 2014''

Also in the bags I made a tonne of little Dinosaur Chocolates. I had planned to make crayons using another mold the same but just ran out of time.

I bagged up 4 little Dino's in a clear little bag (from Safeway) and into the goodie bag they went.

Grow A Dino- I found the Dinosaurs on ebay but as for the bags and tag it was thanks to Pinterest. I copied something another pinner did.

 The Pinata- I was all set to make an actual Dinosaur shape Pinata. Ran out of time and effort factor. So not only did i cheat, but I covered up Tinkerbell in the process (the pinata was store bought and fitted the orange /green colour scheme perfectly)

 I didn't want any old jelly cups. And after much convincing that putting chocolate frogs in jelly would only result in soggy frogs Memphis agreed no frogs. So instead I surprised him with a 3 layer jelly cup! Of course it was more time consuming- ensuring each layer was completely set before adding the next, but hey- they look great right!

The boys t-shirts were $4 each from Target, and I found on Ebay yet again some Personalized iron on transfers.. Teamed up with Milky Slate Cargo Shorts  from Baby For Life

 

 

Hoorah a family pic!

Last year the cake was almost the thing that made me lose it.. This year, and last minute I put a call out on our local page on Facebook to find a cake maker. The lovely Alison Leguido from Cupcake Ally came to the rescue.  She had barely a week to come up with it and I was so stoked. The boys loved their cake!

 

Dinosaur Cookies- Looked easy on Pinterest, easy in theory reality was a whole lot different!

 

I agonized over these darn Dino cookies. I had  researched how to use royal icing and everything but I wasn't convinced on the cookie recipe to begin with, and then the icing seemed like alot of hard work that wasn't guaranteed to result in my desired affect. So the boys got to eat them after the party. I quit before I really even got started. I know my strengths and to date baking pretty cookies isn't one of them!


Managed to get a group shot of all the kids!-





This Red blow up Dinosaur copped a beating. I was surprised it lasted an hour. The kids dragged him around the yard, jumped on him punched him. They loved it. Best $24.95 I ever spent!
(just 3 weeks later he finally got a hole in him)

Overall it was a fab day. I was lucky enough to have a special gal Kayla who helped me out with games and supervision with the kids and so on. Couldn't have done it without her.
For food, we had Dinosaur Fairy bread, Fruit Kebabs, cheezels, small amount of lollies.
Lunch we served Dinosaur nuggets (of course)
Grownups had gourmet sandwiches, and nibblies like Kabana & cheese, biccies and dip etc.