dinosaur coloring puzzle books

I designed these dinosaur coloring books as party favors to go in the dinosaur fabric party bags I made for Oliver’s dinosaur themed birthday party, using vector outline versions of Karl’s dinosaur illustrations, these coordinate with the invitations which use coloured versions of the same dinosaur illustrations.

The books are full of puzzles including dot-to-dot, word search, odd one out, two the same, spot the difference, maze, match dino footprints… There are pages with dinosaurs to colour, and puzzle pages can be coloured too for maximum colouring enjoyment!

I’ve just made up 25 dinosaur coloring books which are to go with the 25 party bags for my first Etsy order. I have given them a new look by printing the inner pages on mixed pastel paper, the covers are on slightly heavier cream paper stock. The originals were on cream paper throughout. Oliver approves of the new colourful versions! I am also making dinosaur crayons to go with this order.

a real un-birthday card

Cyan announced this morning that she wanted to make a birthday card for Oliver, and wasn’t deterred when I reminded her that his birthday isn’t for another four months yet! So off she went and made him a card. She drew a picture of one of Oli’s favourite cuddly toys – a fish beanie; and a striped cat on the other side! She is so amazing at drawing, with so much accuracy and detail – for a four year old! She did the writing too – she can do “To” and “love Cyan” all by herself (I knew all that practice writing all their own cards for birthdays, Christmas etc. would be worthwhile!); Karl helped her with the spelling of “Oliver” so she could write it.

When she was finished colouring it she said she would go and put it up in Oli’s bedroom ready for him when he got home from school. When I went up later to take a peek, it was on his pile of cushions along with the inspirational fish!
How sweet is she?!

Shutter Love Tuesdays @ Trendy Treehouse – Waterball

Today I am participating in Trendy Treehouse’s Shutter Love Tuesdays.
This week’s theme is WATER.
You can click on the photo above to enlarge it if you want a better look. This is a photo of my son Oliver, taken a couple of weeks ago when he got to have a go in a Waterball (I don’t know if there is a special name for these?) which he had been dying to have a go on/in. I was very proud, as he got loads more movement around the pool than any other kids! And he had a ball doing it! (Sorry – pun intended!)
Visit Trendy Treehouse here.

dinosaur fabric party bags

I love fabric party bags – they look great, are tactile, eco-friendly, last for ages and kids love them!

For my son Oliver’s dinosaur themed birthday party I sourced a lovely variety of different dinosaur print cotton fabrics to mix up and make the party bags. I also found fabulous dinosaur printed grosgrain ribbon perfect for the handles.

They were really quite simple to make; what worked really well was double-folding and stitching the top hem and handles, this makes them really sturdy – they have lasted two years now and still going strong! I have just this week made another 25 party bags for my very first Etsy order – very exciting! This also gave me the opportunity to take some photos of the construction process:





You can make these bags to fit any party theme, by varying the fabric and ribbon. If you’re planning a child’s birthday party why not have fabulous fabric party bags as a long lasting keepsake for your guests.

I have dinosaur fabric party bags listed in my Etsy shop along with other coordinated custom/personalized dinosaur party supplies – perfect for a dinosaur birthday party theme.

Linked:

dinosaur party invitations

I created these dinosaur invitations for Oliver’s dinosaur themed birthday party using my vectorised and coloured up versions of Karl’s dinosaur illustrations. The dinos are lively and full of character so I settled on a fairly simple design which showcased the dinosaur illustrations and with all the party information clearly presented.

I searched online for some ideas to dinosaurise the wording; I can’t remember if this is when we started calling Oli “Oliversaurus Rex” or if it was earlier (his middle name is Rex). He still gets called “Oliversaurus Rex” sometimes! The other line I found which I liked was “Don’t be extinct” which I used on the reply slip and where the phone number is repeated on the back.

I printed the invites in colour onto a nice quality medium weight cream paper stock, then trimmed and tri-folded them, to finished size of 99 x 105 mm (4 x 4.25 " approx). This made them compact and neat – easy for Oli to give out to all his friends. Everyone loved them, I got compliments from parents and Oli’s teacher!



I am now offering these customized/personalized dinosaur invitations to buy in my Etsy shop along with other coordinated custom/personalized dinosaur party supplies – perfect for a dinosaur birthday party theme.

dawn of the dinosaurs

We just had to have a dinosaur themed party for my son Oliver’s 5th birthday, the boy is mad on dinosaurs! So that meant dinosaur invitations to design, dinosaur party bags to make and fill with dino goodies; and fun dinosaur games and activities to plan!

As his birthday is in August the party was in the summer holiday so invitations had to be given out well in advance, before the end of term.
I commissioned some dinosaur illustrations from my talented artistic partner, Karl. I wanted five dinosaurs ’cause it was his 5th birthday.
The boy’s fave dinosaurs at the time were T-Rex, Spinosaurus and Brachiosaurus so they had to feature. My personal favourite dino is Stegosaurus and Triceratops seemed the obvious fifth.

Karl did rough sketches of the dinosaurs (he didn’t get to refine and paint them – much to his disappointment) which I scanned in to the Mac ready for tracing. I knew I needed to vectorise these as I already had ideas forming for other things I wanted to do with them. So I traced them into vector outlines in Illustrator and then coloured them up ready to be used on the invitations.

more easter eggs ‘n’ ribbon cards

Good Friday... we went into mass production making a dozen or so more easter cards for family and friends.

eggs ‘n’ ribbon easter cards

Easter cards which Oliver made earlier to give to his teacher and teaching assistant tomorrow. We are going to make more on Friday for family and friends.

I bought a couple of craft kits from the stationery shop for the kids to make felt and wool pom-pom bunnies and chicks; they had a 3-for-2 easter offer so I got these really cute easter ribbons as my free item. They do look cute on the cards with Oli’s decorated eggs.



The cards are now looking even cuter – tucked into cello bags with a little nest of shredded tissue paper and some Green & Blacks mini chocolate eggs, tied with more easter ribbon.