Diego Dinosaur Rescue Party: Part 3

This is Part 3 of a series of posts about a Diego Dinosaur birthday party.  To go to Part 1, click here.  

After the digging, we began our “Dinosaur Rescue Mission.”  While the kids were digging, an envelope was delivered to our house with an important message from Diego.  We gathered the kids around and read them the special message from Diego:

Dear _____ and friends,

Hola!  I need your help.  Maia the Maiasaura is lost!!  She needs to find her way home.  Can you help? 

Gracias!!  Let’s go on a dinosaur rescue mission!!  First you need your dinosaur rescue gear.  I’m sending you all super spotting binoculars so you can spot the Maiasaura, and I’m sending you official dinosaur rescue league hats.

The first thing you need to do is find Maia the Maiasaura.  You will need to jump back 250 million years to the time of the dinosaurs.  When you find Maia, please take her to her nest.

To get to Maia’s nest, you will first need to go through the Muddy Mud Pits, then over the Rocky Rock Mountains, past the Great Volcano, to Egg Island.

Muchas gracias, dinosaur rescuers, and good luck!

Your Amigo,

Diego

After the first part of the letter, we handed the kids each a pair of binoculars and a hat.  I ordered the hats from Oriental Trading Company, and they are really great!  It was totally worth the money to get them.   My only complaint is that the “Safari Guide” badges were facing every way but up on the hats, but I had already planned on covering them up, so it was no big deal.  I made a Diego dinosaur badge that I glued over the existing badge, to change them from safari hats to dinosaur rescue hats.

The only other problem we had was that I ordered a dozen, thinking that we probably wouldn’t have more kids then that, but then when so many of the kids RSVP’d yes, we ended up needing more and didn't have time to order more (plus they are only available in increments of 12).  Luckily I found some plastic pith helmets at Party City and got a few of those to give us enough hats for every kid.  They weren’t as nice or as cheap, but they were still pretty cool, and the kids didn’t seem to notice the difference.

I was also going to order binoculars for the kids, but the reviews were pretty terrible, and I didn’t want to spend the money for something that might break during the party, so The Owl and I made binoculars for everyone from toilet paper rolls.  We asked Grandma to help us collect some, and we ended up with just enough to make 16 pairs.  I had remembered The Owl’s teacher last year making some, and we improved on them a bit by covering the toilet paper rolls with scrapbook paper.  The Owl and I picked out some different patterns from Hobby Lobby when the paper was 50% off and we found some good designs- dinosaurs, leopard print, jungle/leaf prints, and some pretty flower and butterfly prints for the girls.  They were really simple to make, but I’ll post a little how-to when I get the chance.

I ended up with some paper left over, so I cut out some triangles and stapled them to a piece of crape paper for this cute, easy, and cheap bunting that we hung up in the Family Room, which is adjacent to the playroom and kitchen.

The kids looked so cute trekking around the yard in their hats and binoculars! I wish I had set up a photo-op spot or taken the time to photograph each kid individually, but alas, that is one of those things you realize after the party is over and everyone has gone home.  Oh well.

Once the kids had their gear, we stepped outside and looked for the Maiasaura’s footprints.  Originally I was going to have two paths and we were going to have to follow the one with a 3-toed footprint, but I ended up doing just one path, down our stairs that sit to the side of our yard.  I just drew a footprint in PhotoShop and printed about 15 of them on cardstock and placed them down the steps for the kids to follow.  Of course, I don’t have a good photo of them on the steps, but here is the file I made.

Once we got to the bottom, the kids were instructed to use their binoculars and try to find Maia the Maiasaura.  The Owl found her right away under a bush.  I was hoping one of the other kids would find her, but oh well. 

Meet Maia.  I knew we needed her, because the whole point of the mission was to find her and take her to her nest, but I didn’t know what to use for her.  We had a few stuffed dinos, but they were obviously not Maiaisaurs (Stegasaurus, T-Rex, etc) and the dinos we had that could pass were much too small (the little plastic variety).  So I ended up making her, something I thought I would regret but ended up enjoying.  I purchased this really awesome T Rex pattern from Tiddliwink Toys on Etsy, and I’m so glad I did!  It is such a well-written pattern.  I enlarged the pattern by about 200% and extended the arms and tail a bit, but really I didn’t change the shape that much.  Technically Maiasauras had larger front arms, etc, but who can really tell, right?  Just by simply making her in yellow and orange felt, omitting the sharp teeth, and adding  the cute girlsish eyes made a big difference.

Looks a lot like her, huh?

I sew a lot, but this was the first plush animal I made, and I was quite pleased!  It would have turned out better using wool felt, but I had regular felt on hand so that is what I used.

Ok, no more time to write just now, but I’ll be back soon with Part 4 to tell you all about our mission to help Maia find her way home!