paper and cake: Guest {Cousin} Krista: Dinosaur Party

Happy Birthday Boy with his crown

As soon as I saw Paper & Cake's dinosaur party, I knew I had to have it for my son's 5th birthday party. I love the colors, and the dinosaurs are perfect!

The Invitation:

Here's the invitation (totally customizable so you don't even have to write in the information...just type it in once and you're set!) I found these envelopes with a set of stationary at - $10 for 100 flat cards and envelopes in assorted colors. I figured I would use the fun envelopes in the future, and I like to have flat cards around to use for other crafts, so I'm sure it will come in handy.

The Decorations:

Customizable banner

I added streamers for a little something extra (about $1 per roll at Party City). Then we added balloons in two shades of green.

Door Sign

The Activities:

As the kids were arriving, I put out paper lunch bags and a bucket each of markers and dinosaur foam stickers. Each child decorated their treat bag with their name and some dinos. I then stuffed these with a sheet of dinosaur stickers, a few dinosaur tattoos, and some fruit snacks. (I added a couple of plastic dinosaurs after we did our fossil activity as well.)

After they decorated their bags, I took photos in our little dinosaur photo booth! We had dinosaurs on sticks, hats, magnifying glasses, and mustaches. I also borrowed a large dinosaur toy from a friend and hung up a sandy colored backdrop.

Then the kids all sat at the table and we made fossils! A good friend of mine who teaches kindergarten gave me the idea and it was a huge hit!!

Materials: crayola model magic clay, a pail of plastic dinosaurs, a pail of rocks, some plastic shells/shell-shaped beads, a square of cardboard for each child, and some watered-down brown tempera paint and a brush.

Each child got a ball of clay that they flattened onto their cardboard. Then they press dinosaurs, shells, rocks, etc into the clay leaving an imprint. once they finish then they painted it with the brown wash to make it stand out a little bit. The kids loved it, and my mother-in-law (a former art teacher) did a great job telling them what fossils are and helping the kids while I made lunch.

The Food:
For lunch, I served dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets (from costco), apple slices for herbivores, and dinosaur bones (pretzels). I loved using the treat bag toppers as food labels! (I used them on the bags too, but forgot to take a picture, of course!)

The kids loved that their juice boxes had dinosaurs on them!

After lunch, we did a T. Rex excavation using plastic sand molds. I had originally planned to have the party outside, but rain prevented that. I traced the molds onto a piece of poster board, and ended up hiding the bones in my living room before the kids got there. I showed them the picture, told them that they were paleontologists looking for dinosaur bones, and they went hunting. They placed the bones on the board once they found them. They loved it!

The Game:

Finally, we played pin-the-horn on the triceratops. You can buy this game, but since my mother-in-law is so talented I asked her if she could paint a triceratops. I was in awe of what she created! I traced the horn onto some white cardstock for the kids' to play. They were so funny. And I'm hanging that triceratops in my son's room now!

The Wrap up: