Last month it was the boys’ 2nd and 4th birthdays and so I held a joint dinosaur party for them. As soon as I decided on the theme I was straight to Pinterest for ideas and I found some brilliant ones – I could have done so much more but I just didn’t have the time! Nonetheless, I was pretty pleased with how it all came together, especially after pretty much pushing blogging aside for the week prior, to concentrate on party preparation.

This is how it all came together…

Bouncy castle

First of all, I mentioned in a previous post about how I wanted a bouncy castle for the party, and of course it had to be a dinosaur one, for a dinosaur party! I searched all over with no luck and then finally a friend recommended someone she knows, and lo and behold, he had a The Good Dinosaur one on order and it would be available for the date of their party – win!

Once that was booked, I prepared some lists; one for decorations, one for dinosaur themed food, and one for party favours.

Decorations

I did want to make some dinosaur party bunting, but I ran out of time 🙁 In the end it was just shop bought standard ‘Happy Birthday’ bunting that I used. I also bought some helium balloons to put behind the food table; a 2nd birthday, 4th birthday, and The Good Dinosaur.

For the middle of the food table, I made a dinosaur terrarium. I found a plastic fishbowl from the pound shop (dollar store), and we had some play sand which I put in the bottom, then added some dinosaurs and trees from the boys’ play set. A cheap & cheerful decoration!

For outside, I printed off one of these large dinosaur footprints onto card, and then stencilled around it onto a few pieces of funky foam that we had for crafts. I placed the footprints up the drive and in the garden, using stones as toe nails to hold them down. The boys were excited to find one!

Our garden still needed clearing and weeding but I had a brilliant lazy idea of just leaving it as it was to add to the prehistoric theme, and I hid some of the boys’ larger dinosaurs around the garden…

Food

I usually go overboard with food but I made sure I did a few bits that would appeal to everyone; some healthy, some not so (we all need unhealthy food at parties, right?). All dinosaur themed of course! The plastic cups ‘for the herbivores’ were also from the pound shop. I made the labels in picmonkey, printed onto paper then stuck onto card.

Party favours

I did party bags with a few dinosaur party themed pieces in. I found some brown paper bags, also at the pound shop (10 for £1) and then printed some of these smaller dinosaur footprints onto paper to stick on the front. Inside them was a dinosaur maze puzzle, a dinosaur footprint fossil, a dinosaur mask (which were laid out on a table with some crayons in the playroom, for some down time for the children), a small toy dinosaur, and of course a piece of volcano cake! I did also order some dinosaur tattoos but they didn’t arrive in time.

I also did a dinosaur party pass the parcel game with the prize being The Dinosaur Who Pooped the Bed book – and a packet of sweets in every layer so nobody missed out!

All of the children had a great time and some had to be taken away crying as they didn’t want to leave – I think that’s the sign of a good party! 😉

And that’s how our dinosaur party came together!

Rawr!