 Hello fellow parent! Your little girl loves dinosaurs too? Awesome! I have the perfect tips for you to throw her an amazing birthday party. First things first: The Invitations. For this theme I opted to use gold, pinks, greens, and white. Below is a portion of the digital invitation template I purchased off of Etsy:  There are many play on words you can use for the invitations and décor. For my little one who was turning two, she was a “Two-Rex” and my coworker Ilen, who has a Cricut machine made her shirt for me. Other play on words could be “Three-Rex” and “She’s Four-ocious”. I knew that I wanted pink and gold dinosaurs, which you can probably buy offline from somewhere OR you can do what I did. Dollar Tree has dinosaurs most of the time. I bought about 10, grabbed some cheap paints from Michaels, and painted them myself. I also painted a few miniature dinosaurs to put on top of her birthday cake.  Just because, I also made them little party hats because HOW FREAKIN’ CUTE IS THAT?!  We had her party at a local pool where you can rent a room that has AC. We are in Florida and let me tell you - birthday parties in July are brutal. This room happens to have two giant bulletin boards that always have pool activities from classes they teach there. Knowing I would want to cover those up, my mother and I drew a backdrop large enough to cover the boards. I purchased brown wrapping paper (Dollar Tree again!) and taped it together to create a large enough blank space to draw on. You can do this in your home or at whatever venue you may be having your party at to create a very inexpensive, eye-catching wall mural.  Both the dinosaurs and backdrops were created well in advance of the party which helped alleviate additional work closer to the party date. Other decorations included: Adorable little wonky dinosaur cut outs from another friend’s Cricut machine (Who needs a Cricut when you have friends with Cricuts??) A picture of greenery as a backdrop for the main food table Assorted tropical leaves that I ordered off of Amazon My letterboard (that I use for EVERYTHING and another blog will be coming showing all the ways I use it) with a funny phrase A basket with the extra dinosaurs and a sign saying to “Adopt a Dinosaur” A white and pink Happy Birthday banner from Amazon White, green, and pink plastic table clothes I bought from Dollar Tree  The night before the party I made her a small cake and cupcakes. I crushed up Oreo cookies to make “dirt” on top of the cupcakes and put (cleaned) miniature dinos on top. Do as much food prep the night before as possible so you have less work to do the day of.   For the food, we had a “Carnivore” station, an “Herbivore” station, a “Watering Hole”, and a “Sweetivore” station. The “Watering Hole” was just a cooler with drinks inside with a cute sign. We had bottled water, Honest juice boxes, and some cans of soda. The “Carnivore” section had meats, cheeses, and Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets with little buns to make tiny chicken sandwiches. BOMB.  The “Herbivore” section had fruits, chips, olives, and vegetables. There are some themed food items throughout the party like the “Dinosaur Eggs” (grapes) and "Dinosaur Claws" (Bugles). I cut the watermelon to look like Stegosaurus spikes. The “Sweetivore” section had the cakes along with “Dinosaur Bones” and a fruit tray my mom made that looked like a dinosaur.  The party favor bags had a “dig out a dinosaur” dino egg inside along with snacks for the car ride home and cute dinosaur temporary tattoos. The bags were found on Amazon.  The party was really great! Ella had a wonderful birthday. There were zero meltdowns between her or her sister and they crashed in the car on the way home. I call that a success. Thanks for stomping by! 
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 A few years back, two close friends and I all got married within a 9-month timespan. The best part – we were all in each other’s weddings. That was one hell of an expensive year! As we were all sitting around wedding planning, I said, “We’re spending all this money on our beautiful dresses, we should do something with them together afterward.” Hence, the Bridal Tea Party idea was born. We decided we should get back into our dresses, get all dolled up, and sit around in our dresses sipping tea and enjoying our dresses one last time. That is when my obsessive-creative brain kicked into hyperdrive. I spent months reading up about tea party etiquette and proper accoutrement for us to have a beautiful party. Thrift stores were my best friend. I found nearly every decoration and serving piece from some sort of thrift store; teacups, serving platters, plates. Most places even had full fine china tea sets you could purchase.  The tea party day rolls around, and I am beyond excited. I woke up early and started preparing. Ice cubes were made with edible flowers frozen inside. Tea sandwiches were crafted; egg salad, cucumber, and roast beef Mini cakes were baked. Tip: I cut the tops off the cupcakes, flipped one upside down, and glued them together with icing, topped with an edible flower. This gave the appearance of tiny cakes as well as that wonderful “naked cake” look. We also set out meringue bites (store bought, because I am the world’s WORST baker), olives, scones, cookies, along with various tea-party-tidbits such as honey, sugar, milk, lemon, etc.   For a photo backdrop, I hung teacups with ribbon from trees in the backyard.  The entire experience was fantastic, and the photos made for a wonderful keepsake. Not only did we get to enjoy wearing our dresses one last time, but we got to hang around in them without worrying about the hustle and bustle of wedding requirements! I would highly recommend getting your girlfriends together to share in an experience like this one!  |
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