How to throw a last minute kids party – Dinosaur themed of course

Scout’s 3rd birthday party, alternatively titled How to throw a last minute kid’s party – With a dinosaur theme. It also could be named; Please don’t make me throw a party, I’m so so tired.

I just wanted to share a few pics of Scout's birthday party. It was a very simple, last minute celebration that was pulled together on a shoestring. Like every little girl she wanted a dinosaur party. Wait, what? Yeah, a green dinosaur party so hmmm. Actually technically it was a "scary dinosaur, T-Rex party". I was corrected on many an occasion. 

Being the crazy over commit-er I am – the concept of just chucking together a party in less than a week made me break out in a cold sweat. But then I remember that most people don't make, craft, blog and plan about every little detail and I actually just needed to get over myself.  

How to plan a last minute party

1) Create a pinboard and give yourself 30 mins on Pinterest to get ideas, only pin things you can do easily and afford – let the wine-inspired Pinterest deep-dives happen on a boring Friday night, now is not the time. 2) Decide exactly what you are going to do. Keeping to a colour theme can really help draw everything together, but don't be too strict. I went with black and green (loosely) 3) Lock it in, we all know what happens when something changes direction at the last minute. 4) Schedule what you are going to do and when then write it down. ie: Wednesday – freeze dino eggs, Thursday – bake and freeze cake etc. 5) Try to get everything done before the morning of the party then you may actually be able to put on some make-up or brush your hair before the guests arrive. 6) Oh yeah, outsource. If you have awesome parents that stay over the night before and take the kids to the park that morning so you can get it all done – that's awesome. If not then think about what you can outsource. Can a friend bring food instead of a gift? 

Lollie Bags

Put things in the lollie bags that are individually wrapped and not melty so you can just make them and tuck them away in the cupboard days or weeks before the party. Kids can do this themselves. Scout is only three and she made sure there was one of each lollie, toy dinosaur, balloon and sticker in each bag with minimal supervision from me. We decided on Sunday that we were going to have a party in 7 days so we went out that day, bought everything we needed from a cheap shop and had the bags made that afternoon. I bought brown paper bags, some black contact, a circle cutter and some neon builders twine. Simples. If you keep the lollie bag colours within the party theme, they can be part of the decoration and flesh out the table. 

Decorations and Food

Focus on decorating one table and leave it at that. It creates a great focal point and takes minimal time and effort. Our table consisted of a tablecloth, the world's most simple cake, party popcorn, green jelly with a little chocolate 'dinosaur egg' in the middle, party hats, the lollie bags, a balloon backdrop inspired by the AMAZING Pink Ronnie and a bunch of dinosaur toys from the toybox.

Cake

I'm guilty of going a tad overboard when it comes to party baking but sometimes, when you get up at 5am to create cake pops that take about 15 minutes per-pop and you see some kid take a bite, get sidetracked then leave it stuck to a napkin you can get a bit, well, stabby. Since having two kids I actually couldn't be assed. So no crazy fondant, layer cake for Scouty-pants. I made the cake Wednesday, chucked it in the freezer then iced it on Saturday night. This is a great way to go as you can actually make and freeze it up to a month before the party (so long as it's sealed well in glad wrap.) Buying plastic toys to decorate your cake is the best cheat's way out. The dinosaur had a party hat on, inspired by Bleubird's boy's cake and the added mini bunting, inspired by this cake, was made by me. It would have been really simple to buy some roll out fondant to use as icing and although it would have given it a professional look, no one likes eating fondnt so I just whipped out some butter cream. Oh yeah and for the cake USE PACKET MIX PEOPLE! kids don't care about your white chocolate ganash – I promise you that! 

Activities

Chose simple party activities. We did a pinata (not made by me – shock horror) and some frozen dinosaur eggs for the kids to break open on the ground. I just put dinosaur figurines ($3 for 15) in a muffin tray and filled it with water then bunged it in the freezer. There was also pass-the-parcel. I did it the cheats way because as the party was last minute we had no Idea how many kids were coming when we were putting it together. It's just a box full of individual packages that can be passed around, no layers, no remembering where you're at etc. Thanks to my sister for that priceless little tip. 

There you have it, a super quick, super easy last minute dinosaur party that cost hardly anything. 

Here is the birthday girl, hiding in her bedroom with her pinata winnings. Birthdays are full on! Happy birthday lady. We love you more than you love dinosaurs.