**WARNING: Heavy link and picture post***
As I already shared last week, we had Bean's party at Gymboree.
Which was a blessing and a wee bit stressful.
The stressful part for me was remembering everything, packing it all up, lugging over there, and only having 45 mins to setup, EEK, I get the shivers thinking about it again.
But honestly it turned out perfectly.
I also mentioned last week about 90% of his party was DIY, why? because I love to.
Bean is WAY into dinosaurs, so choosing the theme was a no brainer.
And another no brainer for me was where to go to get the paper good made.
As you know from this party and this party Kori, Paper and Pigtails, is my go to girlie for all things party.
First things first the backdrop for the little dessert table.
I was lucky to find large square plates at Ikea summer clearance section, $1 for 10.
Then with my Joanns coupon I purchased a bifold foam board, the kind for science projects, then hot glued the plates to the board.
Then to add a little extra something I added a fabric garland across the top.
Honestly it took all of maybe 20 mins and cost maybe $10 bucks.
One thing I did buy and not make were dinosaur masks from Oriental Trading.
I loved the variety and price. :)
When planning this party it became clear right away that Pinterest was going to be a BIG tool for me. So I created a "Little Dude is Turning 2" board. And one of the first things I pinned were these dinosaur tails, and knew I was going to make them as favors. The first one was not the greatest but after, oh maybe, number 5 I was on a groove and it took two days to complete 12 of them. To make the ones for the girls a little more girlie I added a felt bow to them.
To say they were a hit would be a HUGE understatement.
Honestly I think they made the party.
Another one of those not made things was dinosaurs on the tables, which I bought one for each kiddie to take home. $1 store came through on this one, $12 bucks = PERFECT!
Now back to the table. Using Kori's snack cups, which are my favorite things in her lines, I put some goldfish and homemade lemon buddies {check the back of the Rice Chex box for the recipe}, so yummy.
Now I was going to make cupcakes, and when I woke up on the morning of the party and realized that would NOT be happening, a quick call to our grocery store solved that problem quick and easy.
The cupcake "stand" was made with a $1 pizza pan from the dollar store, a large can from making tomato sauce for dinner one night, then taking the striped paper Kori had made for the set and gluing it all together. WHAM BAM, thank you MA'AM. Cost maybe $3. I also made Oreo Pops, cause no party is complete without them, TRUTH.
Another thing I had pinned were these Cheerio Snacks and right away I knew they had to be our volcanos. So after making them and letting them cool, I took some red wiltons melting candy, heated it per the bag instructions, added it to a ziploc baggie, snipped the tip off, and squeezed on took to make the lava.
They were super cute! And tasted yummo.
When I pinned these dino fossils, I know I was going to make them into cookies. So after making the BEST sugar cookie recipe, rolling it out and cutting it into circles, I took a {washed} dino and made foot prints, then took a little cinnamon sugar concoction, and sprinkled in the foot prints. Baked and done.
Lastly, came the dino claws. When I saw this pin, I was like "HOLY DINO CLAWS!". After making them, which I am not going to lie was NOT fun, the taste of these salty sweet goodies made up for it!
For favor bags, I took just regular old brown paper lunch bags, filled them up, took one of the circles from the dino paper set and sewed the bag.
I love sewing paper, its kinda of weird how much I love it.
And the bags were filled with a book of dinosaur stickers, $1 bin at Target, stamps from Oriental Trading, and no spill bubbles with dinosaurs on the bottle {regular $2.49 I scored on clearance at target for .50!!}
My last project was to make the birthday boy a special shirt. I purchased the shirt from American Apparel, Kori made the Dinosaur and his name and a 2 for the back. After printing onto some iron paper, he was all set to party!
So there it is Bean's Dino-mite 2nd birthday party. It was super fun to plan and execute.
And this little face made it all worth it!
So I warned you, there was a BOAT LOAD of links and pictures in this post.
If you have any questions feel free to ask away.
