Party: Dinosaur Birthday Party for Girls and Boys

We had such a good time at Audrey's dinosaur birthday party! While I've loved hosting parties for my girls at our home, doing one "on location" definitely has advantages! Our local Natural History Museum put together a fabulous couple hours of entertainment and it would have been possible to compete with their collection of dinosaur bones! Going there allowed me to pick a few things I wanted to do purely for fun instead of trying to do it all (it's taken me a while but I'm learning...).

So, I picked the invitations (also a free download for you), some party outfits for Audrey and Scarlett, favor/treat bags, and of course, the birthday cake.

Instead of a party dress, I made Audrey an appliqued dinosaur t-shirt and some striped bloomer shorts (from a pattern of my own design). More of that IKEA striped fabric here. I love it!

Scarlett got a pair of capri length bloomers out of some great, colorful star printed fabric I found a couple weeks ago at Joann (it's made exclusively for Joann). It reminded me of the birthday invitation and for some reason I've had a craving lately for bold patterns. She also had the honor of wearing a dinosaur necklace (a longer version of the bracelets we made) since she didn't get a dino t-shirt.

At the party, thanks to the museum, the kids were able to saw, chisel and brush away stone and dirt to unearth plastic dinosaurs, which they were then able to identify or name if it was an unnamed species (we had the "Audreyosaurus")...

...go on a tour of some dinosaur skeleton exhibits with the museum hosts,...

...learn about fossils and make a "fossil" out of plaster to take home,...

...dig for plastic eggs filled with "dinosaur bones"...

...and make some other dinosaur arts and crafts. All of this would be possible to do at home, but it was pretty great to show up and have someone take care of it all! Plus I loved the educational angle and the opportunity to support our local museum.

The birthday cake was dino too. I was toying with a few ideas but when I found these dinosaur skeletons I had to use them! I love the dinosaur parade on top! The cake is a Martha Stewart recipe, one of my three favorite buttermilk chocolate cake recipes, with a chocolate ganache filling and my own recipe for buttercream frosting. (It's the same frosting I used on this cake, but instead of the lemon flavoring I used almond--yum! Although Audrey later told me she doesn't actually like almond flavoring--whoops! Who knew?)

I tried to tint the frosting to match Audrey's aqua t-shirt, which is also one of the colors on the invitation, and because I thought it was one of the colors that would work with the dinosaur "bones" on top. My sister-in-law did me the huge favor of having these gummy stars delivered to my doorstep a few days before the party and saved me the time hunting around. Then it was just a matter of using a star tip and forming little stars all over the cake. Very similar to this cake. I love this old-fashioned look. There is no mistaking this was made by mom!

The guests each received a hand-stenciled cotton muslin dinosaur treat bag as they left and the bags seemed to be a hit! The museum has some little dino things in a cello gift bag, which I tucked inside our cotton bags to go along with the skeletons and bracelets we'd supplied. I love the idea of having the birthday girl help make the favors as Audrey did this year. Maybe that will be our plan from here on out.

One young guest was afraid hers didn't contain a dinosaur bracelet and was so excited to put it on when I lifted it from the bag--I thought, "hooray!" They liked them!

I couldn't stop smiling on our way home. Audrey thought it was a great party too!

Craft: Dinosaur Treat Bags

I am making a few goodies for Audrey's dinosaur party. Though I love doing the big party tablescape, it's fun to focus on just a few things for this one and let our local museum do the rest. So I am making dinosaur treat bags as party favors.

I ordered these 8"x10" cotton muslin bags and stenciled on some red t-rex skulls. I don't have a lot of experience transferring or stenciling. I probably stenciled a few times years and years ago. And I know there are great new tools for automating much of this. But, since I don't do a lot of it, this low-tech approach seemed just fine. 

I cut out a t-rex skull using the same template I designed for the t-shirt applique and sprayed the back side with some Easy-Tack hoping to bond the edges to the fabric enough to stop the paint from bleeding. It worked thank goodness! I cut out a circle for the eye and an oval for the nostril and sprayed those to stick too. Then I used Martha Stewart Crafts paint in Habanero and painted away with a small clipboard inside the bag to keep the paint from bleeding through to the back side of the bag. I let the bags dry with some paper inserted between the fabric layers and then ironed them with a blotting cloth when they were completely dry.

And for the goodies inside? I've got some dinosaur "skeletons" (love these! they are flexible and would be fun to bury for a digging game) and dinosaur bracelets. The museum hosts are going to add a few other small dinosaur things too.

Audrey helped me make the bracelets for her friends and we made a necklace for her to wear to the party. We used these dinosaur beads and some star beads I bought at Michael's.

Bright and fun!

We're almost ready for the party!

Sewing: Dinosaur Applique T-Shirt (Template)

If you've read any of my birthday party posts, you know how I love to make an outfit to go with the party. So of course something "dinosaur" is in order for Audrey's. Typically I make dresse,s but not for this one. It demands something casual, don't you think? Although a dinosaur dress sounds like a nice challenge... Anyway, I've landed on a dinosaur appliqued t-shirt to go with some shorts, which are in the works.

I used a square of IKEA striped fabric (the same that inspired the stripes on the dinosaur invitation) and used Heat n Bond to adhere the t-rex skull and stars, which I then stitched, leaving a small raw edge. Then I used Heat n Bond again to adhere the whole square to the t-shirt before stitching the edges. A bit pain-staking but pretty fun results! Audrey can't wait to wear it.

If you'd like to make a dinosaur appliqued t-shirt, or use this design to create a stencil you can download the free template here.

Invite: Dinosaur Birthday Party Invitation (Free Printable)

Speaking of parties...it's about time for Audrey's. And this year we've settled on a dinosaur party! My daughter is definitely her own girl. I'm taking a more scaled down approach this year (last year's party was quite the opposite) but am as excited as ever about the invitations. As I've said before, it seems the latest is always my favorite...



I really didn't want to go the scary route with the dinos and I always love color so I picked an IKEA striped fabric (I've got plans for it too) for inspiration and went with stripes and stars with the tyrannosauras rex as the real star. I love all these colors together! They are so summery and energetic. And I hope appropriate for both the girls and the boys we are inviting. What do you think? Generic enough?

My favorite part is the envelope! I think I could stare at it for a while. I don't know what it is but the colors and patterns just make me smile. I've always been a sucker for pretty packages!

I've created a customizable version in PDF for you. Any dinosaur party plans in your future?  There's an invitation, envelope, thank you card, and another envelope set up so you can print the whole batch double-sided. You can of course just print a few of the pages, and single-sided if you prefer. You'll need the latest version of Adobe Reader to type your information into the form fields and save the file. Then print at your local print shop on bright, white cardstock (I had my shop scale the images to fit the letter-sized paper which reduced the margins a bit and resulted in a slightly larger card and envelope--nice!), cut out and assemble and mail.

Download the Dinosaur Birthday Party Invitation here.

Sewing: Frayed Flower Applique T-Shirt (Tutorial)

I love the look of appliqued t-shirts for kids. It must be the obvious handmade quality--so much work. Mini Boden does an especially good job I think, but the past few years as I've perused their catalogs I have thought, "I could make something like that." So instead of buying their darling t-shirts I stocked up on plain colored ones thinking I'd embellish them. It hasn't been happening. When you get right down to it, it's quite a lot of work. And if you care about the exact combination of fabrics, it could also mean extra purchases for a few scraps. I never seemed to have exactly the right selection among my leftovers. So I've gone ahead and purchased a few Mini Boden ones--love them! But I've also managed to make a few of my own: there was this first dalmatian-appliqued t-shirt (not my favorite but it scored points with Audrey at the time; she never ever wore the skirt I made with it by the way....), and the more successful dinosaur t-shirt for Audrey's birthday, and now this "Frayed Flower" for Tess.

I just happened to have all the right fabrics on hand! And it was pretty quick work too. If you'd like to make one I've got a quick tutorial and the flower template you can download free.

Click to view the tutorial.