RAWR: Dinosaur Birthday Party

I am so excited to write this post about my son's 3rd birthday party. It was so much fun to finally see all that I had worked on, in the last few months, coming together, and my son and his friends enjoying each and every moment of it.

First the Roaring invites. Decided to go with the silhouttes of Dinosaurs on it. This sort of set the color theme of the party: Green, Blue and Orange.

                                    The Birthday Boy. My sweet adorable baby, now a boy.

Here is the dessert table for the party. In the background is the burlap banner which I cut and handpainted with all my love for my little one. The banner is pinned on the backdrop that is made from foam and covered with a printed fabric. Would you believe me if I tell you that I used a shower curtain as my fabric!!!

I really wanted the big round balloons for the party. But what a trouble it was to get this inflated. My sister and I spent 2 hours before the party trying to find a place that could fill this up. 

Framed the prints of 4 Dinosaurs and hung these on both sides of the dessert table. 

I decided to take things simple with the cake this year, to reduce the last day stress. It was a Chocolate Devil cake with dinosaur toppers ready to roar. For the Trex dinosaur topper, I followed the tutorial here. For pterandon and stegosaurus, I used the pictures here to make the toppers. Added a cake banner made from printed paper.

For each kid, there were cupcakes with the bright tissue pom pom topper. The tutorial for topper can be found here.

The Jello in Green and Blue was kids one of the favourites. I was planning to add dino shaped gummys to it, which I had especially bought for this purpose, but gummys disappeared right when I needed. 

The marshmallows sprinkled in blue and green were super easy to make and I could prepare it couple of days in advance. It was as simple as dipping the marshmallow in melted white chocolate and then dipping it in the sugar sprinkles.

Candy floss(above): I got these mini candy bottles from Ikea and decorated with the Dinosaur labels. Added a burlap fabric with ribbon to decorate it.

Along with the printed food labels, I also added the signs to indicate if it was a Sweetivore Dino Diet or Carnivore/Herbivore Diet. These signs are made from photo frame(Ikea) with chalk paper in it.

Chocolate and Vanilla milk in glass milk bottles. Instead of buying the expensive milk bottles, I used the Starbucks coffee bottles. That meant my family had to drink lots of coffee in a short span of time :-)

Chocolate covered Oreos was another addition on the table. Used regular and mint oreos, dipped them in chocolate and added a swirl with the melted candy.

Popcorn cones were the first one to go. I had to refill each kid's cone. Looks like popcorn rates higher than the sweet stuff for toddlers. I made these popcorn cones from thick cardstock paper and decorated with tiny dinos and sparkles.

There were fruit kababs with chocolate fountain and sixlet jars as well on the candy table.

For the snacks table, there were lots of snacks most of which my sister made single handedly. The recipes of turkey rolls and potato salad bites can be found here. 

                        In the background is another birthday banner for the snack table.

Dinosaur RAWR from wooden alphabets painted and decorated with crepe paper flower.

The salad cup was my favourite. By the end of party, all were gone, so I guess parents won't hate me that much for all the sweet.

                                                                   Dinosaur Drinks

Dinosaur eggs(string balls) at the entrance. There is a tutorial on these eggs here. 

                'I wish I was a Dinosaur' pins for each kid as they came in. 

Table setting

Each kid got his/her own paper dinosaur. This was the most tedious project. My hands were stiff for days with all the cutting and folding :-)

           Activity table

Surprisingly, kids spent a lot of time here, and made amazing art work.

                                                                 Goodie bags
This was my favourite project I undertook for this party - a personalised goodie bag for each kid. Here is the tutorial on it.

Party Hats

I bought ready made hats from walmart and decorated them with printed paper and pom poms. Kabir chose and stuck the pom poms on each hat for his friends.

   Dinosaur name printables

Each kid got one before they left.

                                     Now the games. This was part I liked the most in the party.

                                                                                Dino Dig

I filled Kabir's toy bins with play sand and lots of dinosaur skeletons. Got few shovels and stage was set for a fun Dino Dig.

                                                                            Pinata

                                                                Dinosaur Egg Hunt
Kabir and I made these eggs from soil flour salt mixture, with a tiny dinosaur baby hiding in between the egg.  Kids had as much fun breaking each egg to find these dinos, as they had hunting for these. I wish there was a better picture of the eggs. Here is the tutorial I followed for the eggs.

                                                                  Erupting Volcano

Made this volcano from flour/salt/water mixture over a plastic bowls. The topmost bowl had baking soda. Each kid got a chance to pour magic mixture(vinegar) in the volcano and watch it erupt.

                                                                       Photo Booth 
I got some props for the photo booth. There was dino masks, dino noses, dino tail for the kids to use.

                           

This is my favourite picture. All the kids together(almost)..some were still inside muching on the sweets.

                      And this is what I get for throwing this party. A big Dino kiss. Isn't it worth it.

Other Details:

Invites by TheGreengrassgrows. Printed at catprint.com
Cupcake liners and straw slip printables from TheCelebrationShoppe.
Birthday boy Dinosaur shirt from DressMe
Birthday boy Dinosaur Hat from StellandLivi. I added the pom pom and frill for more cuteness.
Paper Dinosaur Kirigami printables from EasyCutPopUp.
Striped Straws from Isakayboutique
Dinosaur Pin Buttond from Wacky Buttons
Photography by Mickie from Winters Photography.
Everything else : made with LOVE by Kabir's Mom

Lightining is ready.. vroom..vroom...vroom....

This is the cars cake I made for Kabir's friends' birthday recently. His Mom told me that he was Cars movie fan. So, I tried to incorporate some stuff from the movie. For the cake topper, I made 'Lightining McQueen' from fondant using the tutorial here. And a flag was an easy addition in the end.

My son was not sure why I was not making King(Blue car) and Mater(Brown car) as well. So, I convinced him that the brown(almost) cake is Mater, and the Blue icing is the King. Not sure if he bought it :-)

, As the Birthday boy wanted a Vanilla cake, I tried few recipes before I finalised this one. Its almost identical to the mom's sponge cake recipe. 

This Vanilla Sponge Cake recipe is adapted from Erica's recipe on allrecipes.com 

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup cake flour (after sifting)**
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

**If you are out of cake flour, 1 cup of cake flour can be substituted with 2 tbl spoon of corn starch in one cup, with rest of it filled with regular cake flour.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Separate the eggs. In a large mixing bowl, beat egg yolks until very thick and lemon colored. Beat in sugar gradually. Add water and vanilla extract. Beat in flour.
3. In another bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Then add cream of tartar and salt. Beat mixture until whites are stiff, but not until they are dry. Fold this whipped mixture into yolk mixture.
4. Pour batter into an ungreased 9 inch tube pan. Bake for one hour, or until done. If using two 9 inch regular pans, reduce the cooking time to 35 minutes.

Tips, Tricks & Lessons learnt

• In a sponge cake, pan is not to be greased, as the oil in it will hold the batter from rising. But I lined the base of pan with parchment paper. Not sure if I was suppose to do it or not, but it worked out fine for me.
• Baking powder is not added to sponge cake. The leavening comes only from beaten egg whites.
• Either warm the eggs before using or take them out of refrigerator much before use. Warmed eggs hold more air and create more volume when they're whipped than cold eggs.
• Sponge cake tastes the best when soaked with a syrup or flavouring. I always prefer the pineapple syrup in the canned pineapple.
• Once the batter is ready, it should go into the pans and in the oven immediately. 
• If using a convection oven, always reduce the baking temperature by 25 degree F than what the recipe calls for. In this case, the baking temperature would be 300 degree F.

Happy Baking!