Little M&M chose The Good Dinosaur as his party theme this year. Scroll on to see the party details!
Invitation
I created this in Photoshop Elements. Pardon where I whited out his name and our address.
Decorations
I created this sign and hung it on the door where our guests would arrive.
Foam hats are $1 each at Michaels, so I purchased a few in our party colors and easily made them into dinosaur heads with googly eyes and white foam. Super quick project and the kids enjoyed wearing them at the party!
Here are two such dinos, my daughter Honey Pot and her big cousin!
And the birthday boy wearing his, as well as a Good Dinosaur t-shirt we bought on Amazon.
This is the display I made for behind the beverage/dessert table. The banner I purchased from Oriental Trading. The posterboard I turned into a glowing #4 using Christmas lights, to imitate the firefly scene in the movie.
Here are the two beverages we offered to the kids. Lava Punch and River Water, with labels I created.
And the desserts! I made funfetti cupcakes with chocolate frosting, chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and sugar and spice cookies with dinosaur footprints.
Also on this table was this firefly in a jar, which we purchased from Amazon, and it is so cute and realistic, flitting around in there!
Here is the table where all of the kids sat to eat their snacks. Good dinosaur plates and cups are from Oriental Trading. We had some Skinny Pop and grapes set up on the table. All other food was on a table nearby.
The Food
Our party time was 2-4, so we just served a few snack foods. For any guests who remained into the evening, we ordered pizza later. I made Herbivore and Carnivore signs for this table. We served sliced apples with caramel dip, strawberry mango salsa with cinnamon chips, maple bacon crack, meatballs and a really cool nacho volcano!!
We followed the instructions at this blog.
Party Games and Activities
We had a few coloring pages and mazes set up at a small table for the kids to do while they waited for others to finish eating. I printed those from here.
Here are some pictures from the first two games we played. Dino Says (Simon Says) and Hot Dino Egg (Hot Potato). We also handed out these crunch bar "medals" to the winners, inspired by this blog.
As a last minute addition to the party, I created this "river" out of a blue Dollar Tree tablecloth and some stones we had out in our yard. The idea was for the kids to carefully cross the stones without falling into the river, and they could "make their mark" on the other end. I had taped a Good Dinosaur picture there (yanked out of the banner I had purchased), and traced my son's hand on it. The kids had so much fun with this simple activity! It was played with throughout the party and through the weekend even, with our overnight guests.
As a final party game, my husband created a dinosaur out of balloons. Since we had young kids, and we were indoors, we didn't want to use darts. So my husband taped a thumbtack behind each balloon. One at a time, each child threw bean bags at the balloons, and if they hit one, it'd POP! Such a fun and exciting game. Inside some of the balloons were numbers, and whoever had the highest total from all the balloons they popped would win the last chocolate bar medal. This was a favorite game for all, I think, and a huge success. The inspiration for this game came from this blog.
Party Favors
For party favors this year I created dinosaur eggs. I followed a paper mache tutorial from here, making two layers and leaving the bottom of my balloons uncovered. Once they had dried, I cut the balloon and took it out. I filled with my party favors and sealed back up with more paper mache. Once dry, I painted them and placed them in a nest I made out of laundry basket and brown craft paper. I had fun doing the paper mache, but it was definitely a time-consuming project!
At the end of our party, the kids went outside and cracked open their eggs. Seeing the fun they were having made the whole project so worth it! They loved this!
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