A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - The banners, signs and food labels

There are so  many adorable, colourful and delightful characters in the program, Dinosaur Train, and Ben has a love for several including the main characters, Shiny, Tiny, Don and Buddy but he also loves Daphne, Tank, Mr Conductor and of course, Mr Spinosaurus.  Ben asked they all be there to say Happy 4th Birthday and this is how we did it...

This was the banner that was to be on the window on the front of the house.  Luckily we could squeeze this on our outdoor patio feature wall...squeeze it was though!

The creation of the banner was accomplished in Stampin' Up! MDS a program (that is so worth the $25AU it currently costs) that allows you to import images and create great home decore, cards, scrapbooking and so much more!  

Ben chose the images he wanted and I imported them into MDS and simply used electronic punches to get my shapes and then I filled them with electronic DSP contained within the program or used MDS to create paper from images.  I used a triangle punch and filled it with a background fossil image. (ie the blue background of the triangular banners is a repeated segment from an image sourced on google).  The triangles for the banner were cut out using the Stamping' Up! Trimmer.

I then used a second and third punch to create the scallop circles that were filled with coordinating cardstock - Gumball Green, Tangerine Tango and Pacific Point.  I then filled the scallop circle with a coordinating circle and filled it with a DSP.  Finally I added a letter and coloured it coordinating with the DSP and scallop circle background.  These were grouped, printed and punched out using the coordinating scallop circle punch and mounted on the triangles using Stampin' Up! Dimensionals.

I then copied a number of images of his beloved Dinosaur Train characters and sized them in MDS, printed them, then cut them out and mounted them on the banners using dimensionals.  I used a retired punch for the ribbon holes on the banner pieces which enabled me to thread the pieces together with retired  Kaszazz ribbon.

 

There was to be a fossil dig, but that activity got rained out - this is how it looked the day before...

and these were the markers to tell the palaeontologists where to dig...

The children did get to collect their dinosaur and egg from Benniosaurus' Terrace and these are the signs I made to direct the children...

Other signs included a Welcome, Activity Centre and Dining area

Unfortunately due to the rain these were not on display in the yard as intended.  Instead they were stuck on the brick work, so sadly I think they were a little un-noticed.

I labelled all of the food for a little fun . . . with not only the Dinosaur Train characters, but dinosaur themed food names :-)  Ben thought this was a lot of fun!  The food labels were made in a very similar way as the banner; using MDS with a rectangular background and images of characters fussy cut and adhered to the background using dimensionals.  This assembly was then glued to a background card as shown below.

There were Erupting Mountains, Dinosaur Eggs, Fossil Biscuits and Volcano Cakes just to name a few

To see more of the food please go to the post - The Food & Healthy Eating

MDS is so much fun once you get into using it and being able to punch out the scallop circles was just amazing.  I thought I might be hand cutting those, so you can image how chuffed I was to learn the punch in hand matched the punch on MDS.  What an awesome tool and so worth the small $25AU!

A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - The Food & Healthy Eating

How to cater for a Dinosaur Train themed 4th Birthday party when my son and I have a number of  food intolerances eat organically.  We almost have a Paleo diet; we don't eat grains, soy products, animal milk protein, most processed foods, sugar, canned tin foods, yeast and the list goes on. So we make most things we eat from scratch and it is not a big deal.  I guess because the first 18 months of Ben's life was spent nursing a screaming baby that was lucky to sleep 20minutes at a time, we got to a point where we would do ANYTHING. That anything was a continual elimination diet to just water and a few basics. I felt like I was surely going to die and I was still breast feeding 6 times a day when he was 15 months; but we got through and Ben has known no different so it is easy for us... well Ben, I am naughty on the odd occasion.

So with such food restrictions, how do I satisfy the adults and still cater for Ben and the children. This was easy once I thought about it and here is the menu with pictures. I did have a few naughty foods for the adults, dairy dip - Philly cheese with sweet chilli sauce, salsa and corn chips (I think that is naughty) and punch.  All was gluten free and sugar free, bar the punch, and dairy free, bar the Philli cheese dip.  Everything, bar the dips, were organic and dairy free thus suitable for Ben and I to eat. 

Tray 1

Gluten Free Carrot Cake in the shape of a volcano

This recipe will feature in a future post HERE

Gluten Free Biscuits, imprinted with dinosaur skeletons dipped in Cacao

This recipe will feature in a future post HERE

 Gluten Free Vegetable Chips - this was the first time Ben had chips, so he preferred the plain as opposed to the BBQ flavoured ones below. 

Ajitas Vege chips - Ben has the plain, I love BBQ.  yummmmmmmy

Tray 2

Gluten Free Chocolate Friands in the shape of a volcano

This recipe will feature in a future post HERE

Gluten Free Chocolate, Macadamia Fudge Slice - reminds Ben and I of a fossil dig, hence the label!

This recipe will feature in a future post HERE

Gluten Free Rice Bubble Eggs

recipe is by "SUGAR FREE KIDS"

Dips
Erupting mountain - Philii cheese topped with sweet chilli sauce surrounded with an assortment of plain rice biscuits  and vegetable chips, all Gluten Free.

Philli Cheese and sweet chilli sauce, again purchased from the grocer.  This was for the adults.

Lava ooze - Salsa and corn chips, gluten free and dairy free

Salsa was out of a jar and HOT HOT HOT, thanks Lex!

Herbivore Swamp - Avocado dip surrounded with an assortment of rice biscuits, vegetable chips and Corn Chips - all Gluten Free.

The avocado dip was simply mashed avocado, a squeeze of lemon juice and a dollop of coconut cream or you can use coconut yoghurt.  Mix and serve.

Spinosaurus claws - Natural Cashews, not roasted or salted.

Dinosaur Train themed foods included these very yummy cashews.

Hot foods - I understand not everyone likes to or wants to eliminate gluten or dairy from their diet, especially my husbands parents, so we put out an assortment of buns, rolls and margarine (personally HATE margarine) for their pleasure.

Ol Spinosaurus guarding over the hot foods with Boris and Don in line for  organic BBQ onions, Gluten Free beef sausages and chicken wings.

Our wonderful butcher "Payne Butchers" organised organic chicken wings for us and made the most delicious organic gluten free fresh sausages.  I am not a fan of sausages, but these were delicious.  This gave us a hot menu of  Organic Onion rings, Sausages and Chicken wings. These were labelled as  Mesozoic worms, T Rex digits and Pteranodon wings respectively.


Simply fried onion - Ben LOVES fried onion, white, brown and red

GF Organic Sausages made my our local butcher

Marinated Organic chicken wings.

The chicken wings were marinated overnight in
2 tbsp Organic Tamari sauce "abundant earth" is the brand I use and it does not make us sick.
1/2 cup Organic Maple syrup
2 tsp organic mustard
12 chicken wings

METHOD
Cook on BBQ or frying pan basting continually with half of the marinade
and then put in oven with the rest marinate for at least 30mins
very simple and very yummm, and not too strong in flavour for the children.

You see the food was fairly simple, my husband takes credit for the cooking, I make up the recipes if need be.  Thank you for stopping by, catch you at the next post.

A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - The Drinks

We have a wonderful little boy who LOVES Dinosaur Train and this is a snap shot of his 4th Birthday celebrations held one rainy afternoon in April 2014. 

The Drinks
Swamp Water for the adults and children - refreshing mint leaves in lemon ice water and since this is where the Ol' Spinosaur lives, he features on the label created in Stampin' Up! MDS.


Iced water with a squirt of Lemon Juice and fresh Mint leaves to top.

Lava juice - Punch

This is a favourite of mine and a treat for the Adults and I - full of sugar, not organic, but damn yummy
2L Golden Circle tropical punch
1L Golden Circle golden pash
1.25L Sprite Lemonade (does not have preservative 211 sodium benzoate or caffeine)
1/2 bottle of 1.25L Dry Gingerale
I packet frozen berries to colour and add that yummy fruity taste
Ice to top.

The label features Daphne, Daspletosaurus a lovely dinosaur who loves to stomp and dance.  Again the label was created in MDS by Stampin' Up!

Thanks for stopping by

A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - The Decorations

Dinosaur Train is a wonderful Jim Henson production that my son have love for the past 18 months, so when I was asked for a Dinosaur Train themed birthday celebration, I could only say "sure".  My son's favourite character is Ol' Spinosaurus, but he also favours the Pteranadon family, Daphne, Tank, the conductor and a few others.

Ben and I turned out our trusty pinterest board to be inspired as to how, we would decorate the front yard and we decided on the following party decorations
               Ol' Spinosaurus and friends
               banners - Birthday and Train Station
               balloons in green, blue and orange & feature balloons
               table sprinkles/glitter
               streamers in green, blue and orange
               table cloths in green, blue and orange
               themed plates, cups and serviettes
               cutlery in blue
               food labels in green, blue and orange
               dressed up Chinese lanterns in green, blue, red and orange

But alas it rained so the front yard decorations did not go up and the balloons did not go out, only a few could be put up in the small pergola area.  The welcome...

These are some snap shots of what I was able to achieve...the Birthday Banner made to fit on our feature wall with the frog as Ben wanted the frog to stay...



Ben's surprise was the themed Balloons ... I could not believe how big buddy was and apparently nor could Ben "Mummy he is nearly as big as me LOOK!"

and his plates, cups and serviettes.  These were gifted to him and didn't his eyes light up when he saw them!

Ben is a little party hunter, I tell him what we have left to purchase and when we are out shopping he spies thing, in this case these blue knives, forks and spoons, bargain price.



We themed the food labels with cut outs of his favourite Dinosaur Train characters ... he loved these





and Ben's dinosaurs were placed here and there...

Ol Spinosaurus got around on the day, moving around the party to check on things...

The lanterns were inspired from a pin on pinterest.  Ben and I thought they needed heads and real armour, so we dressed them up like this using Stampin' Up! card and their wonderful Sticky Strip.  These guys were supposed to be hanging in the trees and in and off his cubby; would have looked amazing...



Mr Spinosaurus got hungry and tried to eat a butterfly...

Basic decorations that Ben and I enjoyed making together.  I wish it had not of rained - we had so much more to hang up and many more balloons to put out. 

A Dinosaur Train Birthday Party - Dressing Up

Who does not love party themed dressing up, and there is few things more enjoyable than watching children dress up and act out.  For Benjamin's 4th Birthday party which had the theme of  "Dinosaur Train", we just had to dress up as dinosaurs.  We used our trusty pinterest board to be inspired for these ideas...

We had masks which I printed from HERE

I made lots of tails of all sorts including, Stegosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Wuerhosaurus, and Hesperosaurus.  To see how I made these click HERE for the next post.

We cut out many pairs of feet - inspired from the footprint sheet found HERE

A BIG thank you to Rose and Tammy for cutting these Tyrannosaurus Rex foot prints, I drew them using the tracks above and the girls cut them out for us.

 

and Triceratops foot prints - I was amazed how aggressive the tracks were considering the animal was a herbivore and had horns...

and Stegosaurus foot prints - much more friendly for a herbivore LOL

When the feet were on...I placed a square of double sided tape on the underside of the feet so that they could stick to the shoe/foot and not move around the foot.

and the tail and mask where all put together, this is what it looked like...

Definitely CUTE...

If I was to do this all again, I would use felt not foam for the feet.  Although I had a big square of double sided tape on the underside of the foot so it would adhere to the shoe or foot to stop it swinging around the ankle, there were a number of them that tore.  The tails and masks were lots of fun and I can only imagine how much more fun the kids would have had if it were not raining and they had full run of the front yard.

I will give you a description of how I made the tails in a future post HERE, I look forward to your company.