gannet, fairies, bunnies and other deadly creatures

Some of the latest master-pieces from my kids..



“Gannet” by Oliver (7) .. a work of art.



“Deadly 60 line-art” also by Oliver.

Deadly 60 is Oliver’s favourite wildlife programme, all about the world’s deadliest animals. He is also just a wee bit obsessed with the accompanying Deadly 60 trading card game. Oliver drew the above outline drawings from the photos on some of his favourite cards.. (clockwise from centre top) great white shark, nile crocodile, piranha, gharial, spectacled caiman, orca, alligator snapping turtle, clouded leopard.



“Fairy queen and king” by Cyan (5).

Cyan cut shapes out of a separate sheet of paper for the clothes on the fairies and stuck them down, then coloured them and drew on the other features, all her own creativity.



“This is four Mumm and Dadd” bunnies also by Cyan.

I love these guys!

dinosaur by cyan

Here we have another wonderful example of both Cyan’s artistic talent, and her giving nature. This is a picture of a dinosaur she drew today. She showed it to me when I got home after work; as I was marvelling at how good it was, she said to me “It’s not for you mummy, it’s for the little boy whose birthday is soon, who’s having the dinosaur party”. She is referring to my very first Etsy order, which I have been hard at work on recently, making dinosaur party bags, coloring books and crayons for a little boy’s dinosaur birthday party. I also made personalised bunting for him as a little thank you gift, which I will write about later.

The order was mailed across the pond last Saturday, so too late to send her drawing. I scanned and emailed it, I hope the birthday boy will like it!

I may get her to colour it tomorrow, scan it again and turn it into a birthday card!

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.

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.