March has breezed by and was packed with so many fun things and celebrations. Most importantly, our big boy turned 3! We celebrated at home with family and a few close friends and all things dinos. I was honestly thrilled he requested a dinosaur theme this year. As much of a girly girl as I am( and have always been) I grew up watching The Land Before Time almost daily and had a deep love for Little Foot and friends (IYKYK). So much so that my first pet was named Sara after the sassy little triceratops. So my heart was happy with this one. Anyways back to the dino DIY’s.
My first stop was to scour Meri Meri of course for all things party supplies that I couldn’t make myself. I loved the muted color palette of their dinosaur themed items so I used that as inspiration to create the invitations and for other little decorations I made and collected. I found a whole bunch of $1-$2 dinosaur figures at the thrift store and felt like I hit the jackpot. They were a little yuck so I decided to spray paint them to use for the table. I got carried away, as one does. I used some leftover Maileg wrapping paper to make teeny party hats and glued a pom pom on top, then hot glued the hat on the dinosaurs head. They turned out so cute and were a big hit. Every year I order balloons from GoGoGlamCo and I am always so happy with the quality, color selections and ease of putting it all together. We used the big white bounce house from friends at AMI Cabanas. I cannot say enough good things about this family owned business who recently branched out into party rentals to compliment their cabana rental services on the island. This bounce house came with loops to make it easy to tie the balloon garland on. My mom came over earlier in the week to help me decorate the inside of the house. Sure we went a little crazy. But Z was so surprised when he came home from school that day! We had his party a weekend earlier due to meeting friends in Orlando over his actual birthday weekend so I left all the birthday decor up for a solid two weeks. The day before the party I really put my DIY skills to the test when I embarked on this cake making journey. I baked the cake and decided it was going to be too large to store assembled so I covered it with care and woke up bright and early to finish it the day of the party. I used my go to vanilla and buttercream recipe that you have maybe seen me share, I make many different versions of it. It’s become a no fail for me and I can now confidently add things to it without fear of messing it up. This time, I doubled the recipe and baked one sheet cake plus two round 8″ cake pans. I cut both of the round cakes in half, if you look at the photo you can see how I stacked them to make the tectonic plate, if you will. lol. I wanted to get fancy with my piping bags and tools but honestly that never works for me so using a good old fashioned butter knife, I carefully made the waterfall and then frosted all the brown and green parts around it. I ordered some random dinos and trees on Amazon (bc for whatever reason, my toddler was very specific about wanting a tree on his cake and it looking like ‘dino world’ – still don’t know what that is, lol). He LOVED it though! To say the least. My mama heart was full watching him inspect all of the fun things we made and set up for his big day…but especially as I watched his delight as each of his special friends showed up and they gave each other big hugs. They tore it up for a few hours and he said it was the best birthday ever. Winning!
I’ve linked some of my favorite party supplies below as you scroll on through some fun photos from this DINOmite day.
xoxo
