Three Rex Dinosaur Birthday Party

It is my favorite time of year! Party time! This year our son celebrated his third birthday with a three rex dinosaur birthday party. Dinosaur party games were played. Dinosaur party treats were eaten, and there was even a visit from a giant inflatable t-rex!

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Oh my goodness, this dinosaur party was such a fun one to plan and attend! It is hard to imagine Connor is already three. He is at a fun age now where he not only understands but appreciates and is excited about his birthday party.

These parties are such a fun connection for us. Connor has the best imagination and I love designing his parties to be an extension of his pretend play and to bring it to life the best I can.

let’s party! ✨ jump to the dinosaur party supplies links

Dinosaur Party Theme

I usually pick the theme of the party based on the topic that Connor seemed to be interested the most in throughout the year and lately he has loved pretending he is an explorer and he loves playing with his dinosaurs (in slime). So dinosaurs it is!

The imaginative play idea behind this party is that we are explorers who set up camp at the unknown dinosaur island. Our adventure is to find and party with the dinosaurs!

Dinosaur Party Costume

I love to do a photoshoot with Connor before the party that goes along with the theme so I have pictures to display as decor and one to include in the invitation. For his dinosaur party Connor dressed up as a dinosaur explorer/paleontologist.

I ordered this kids’ explorer vest and hat set and then attached this super awesome custom dinosaur name patch I found in this cute Etsy shop to it to make it more unique and personalized.

I bought a cheap blow up Brachiosaurus dinosaur. I thought I was ordering a large dinosaur so when I opened the package I was surprised to see it was smaller than I thought. But it turned out to be the perfect size for a toddler to pick up and throw around. I also used the brachiosaurs as decor at the dinosaur party.

Connor used our INSTAX camera that we already had and a magnifying glass as props. We used these props in our photo booth at the party as well.

We took these photos in my parents backyard because they have quite a few tropical plants, a perk of living in Houston!

He really got into character this year and we played pretend that we were explorers hunting for dinosaurs in the jungle (the flowerbed behind my parent’s pool) while I took photos of our adventure with our Canon EOS REBEL.

Three-Rex Birthday Party Invitations

I love creating unique envelope designs just as much as the invitations. I take a great deal of time picking out all the details that will go into the envelopes. I LOVE the color of these olive envelopes.

I chose to make the envelope liner out of scrapbook paper with tropical leaves because I wanted it to have more of a vintage island feel rather than slap you in the face dinosaur theme.

I also found a cute dinosaur tracks stamp (it is sold out but here is a similar one) that I stamped along the back to give the appearance a little tiny dinosaur walked across the envelope and give a subtle hint about what might be in store for guests at the party.

I wanted to mix tropical elements with playful dinosaurs because our son is turning three. Our son actually picked out these funny dinosaurs stickers. They were perfect to incorporate into envelope. I added a speech bubble label with the recipient’s address as if the little dinosaur was telling you where the envelope needed to be delivered.

I was doing a little research and I found that the USPS just released a Tyrannosaurus Rex series of stamps and I am all about the details so I was so pumped to order them because they completed the look of the envelopes.

I designed our son’s dinosaur party invitations to have a vintage aesthetic. Once again I wanted the dinosaur invitations to have a look that was vintage, tropical and playful too. Because I wanted the invitation to seem like it was from another time period, I needed the paper to look old and worn.

Brent has a background in printmaking and he recommended dying a large sheet of watercolor paper with tea bags to create an organic stained paper look.

After the paper dried, he ripped it into 8 ½ by 11 sized paper and we ran it through our printer and printed two invitations per piece. Then, he used a special technique to rip the paper down to the individual 5″x7″ sized invitations. This gave the invitations the rough edges.

I chose my favorite photo from our explorer photo shoot and printed it on the same paper we dyed with the tea as a 5″x7″ and included it in the invitation.

Dinosaur Birthday Party Cake and Treats

Every party we like to decorate the coffee bar we made as a dessert bar.

We have a large framed chalkboard over our coffee bar that we made so it only seems fitting to me I create a new chalkboard design for the theme of the party.

I covered the chalkboard frame with the leftover leaves I plucked off an artificial plant straight of of the 90’s. The plant was donated/sacrificed for the party so it cost me $0.

Brent thought it was funny to stick googly eyes on all the dinosaurs on the chalkboard.

I purchased some inexpensive faux vines to spread throughout the dessert bar. I also used various plants I had around the house including this faux fern and ones I borrowed from my mom’s house.

I gave Brent the task of making the cake again this year. We went with a simple Funfetti cake with light icing and crushed golden Oreos on top.

I always really like tall candles and found these cool green marbled candles that we put on the side of the cake.

For the top of the cake we designed and made our own three rex cake topper out of wood and made a few laser cut wood leaves.

We wanted to tie the cake to the invitation design so we designed the cake topper to be a speech bubble and then transformed a plastic dinosaur to look more like the playful t-rex on the envelopes.

Brent painted a plastic dinosaur green and hot glued googly eyes to it to bring to life the same t-rex from the envelopes.

We set the cake on our wood slice cake stand that we already had from our lumberjack party.

I used a wooden bread bowl to display dinosaur footprint cookies.

A wood cake stand worked perfectly to hold “dinosaur dirt”. These little plastic cups came with tiny spoons and were a nice size for guests to get a taste of this yummy chocolate pudding treat.

I recycled jars I already had to hold chocolate candies and each guest was given a treat box to fill up with desserts before they left.

Dinosaur Birthday Party Food

I covered the food table with brown kraft paper and then used my same dinosaur footprints stamp to make tracks all across the table.

I decorated it with plants I already had and used these faux palm leaves I bought for the party. I stuck a few of Connor’s plastic dinosaurs on the table as well.

I like putting fruit and veggies in individual cups because they are allow guests to easily grab and hold them. We displayed them on a galvanized 2 tier serving stand.

I love these cute tropical napkins I found at Target.

We got lots of feedback from party guests that they thought the bamboo plates and utensils were a nice touch.

The plates were strong and durable which I feel like is important since party guests usually walk around and hold their plates. Plus, the bamboo plates fit perfectly with the theme.

Dinosaur Party Games

We made our own “Feed the T-Rex” game. Brent free hand painted our Tyrannosaurus Rex on a large sheet of cardboard.

He made a stand to hold it up and added a rubber band to the tongue to create a springing motion so if the beanbag didn’t hit the tongue hard enough it would “spit” it back out.

I made the bean bags that looked like raw meat. I just used various sheets of red felt I already had in my stash and filled it with rice since I didn’t have any beans.

At the party we had a competition. We split into two teams and each person took their turn throwing the 5 steaks. We added up how many steaks each person on the team fed the t-rex to see what team won.

Connor loves playing treasure hunt so I created an elaborate (but still age appropriate for a three year old) treasure hunt for his party.

I designed a map of dinosaur island (our house) and wrote a series of clues (grown-ups helped him read) leading him around the house until he ultimately ended up in the sand box in the backyard where he dug up a treasure box.

I designed the treasure hunt map and then printed it on a piece of paper that was dyed with tea like we did with the invitations.

I found this cool treasure box and it was cute to watch how excited Connor was to dig it up a real treasure chest and open it with the key.

I printed the clues on parchment paper sheets, cut them out, rolled them up, and tied them up with twine so they looked like vintage scrolls.

I tied each clue to a plastic dinosaur and hid them throughout the house.

Connor was very into hunting for the dinosaurs and the clues. Our dinosaur treasure hunt went over better than I thought.

Dinosaur Party Photo Booth

For the photo booth I bought this dark green craft fabric and then hot glued plastic palm leaves on the backdrop.

Our jungle photo booth included a bench for guests to sit. I needed to cover up the bench so I created a foreground for the photo booth.

I covered a piece of cardboard with the same green fabric and then hot glued thick craft sticks to the back to hold up palm leaves. Brent made a stand out of cardboard for it so it would stand up itself.

For props I had a basket where guests could grab: the INSTAX camera, magnifying glass, kid binoculars, plastic safari hats, and that inflatable brachiosaurus.

Dinosaur Party Decor

One of my favorite details for our three rex dinosaur party was these giant t-rex tracks leading up to the house. Brent made the t-rex footprint stencil out of cardboard and then used green spray chalk to fill it in.

I told Brent to make them as big as possible.

Connor actually spent the night at my parents’ house the night before so we could surprise him with all the party decor and he loved pulling up to the house and seeing these giant dinosaur tracks.

These safari party hats were a hit with all the guests. Most of them kept them on for the entire party. They even fit the adults.

Connor’s one request for his party was a piñata. This baby dinosaur piñata was super cute but ridiculously hard to break open.

It was kind of a party fail because nobody could break it except Brent and even then it took him several times before he ended up hitting the head off it in a somewhat disturbing manner. Ha.

This leaves covered 3 was another one of my DIY projects that I made using plants off of an old faux plant from my mom’s house.

I printed off several of my favorite photos I took from our dinosaur hunter photoshoot I mentioned at the beginning of the post and taped them to the wall with some of the palm leaves.

We staged this 5 foot t rex holding a giant green 3 balloon so it was the first thing Connor saw when he walked in the door. He was so excited when he saw this massive dinosaur.

The t-rex was a favorite among everyone at the party. He got carried around the party participating in the games and the photo booth. I will say that it is good quality for the price. The t-rex got punched and wrestled with and held up fine.

I covered a table with the same green fabric as the photo booth and this is where I set items for the guests to take including the safari hats and the “pet dinosaur” boxes.

Brent is really good at making balloon displays so I had him create one using this assorted green balloons kit and the balloon garland decorating strips that were left over from the lumberjack party.

This “Roar” balloon garland also makes for fun dinosaur party decor.

We played on the “adopt a dinosaur” basket I have seen at other dinosaur parties to be a game for finding your pet dinosaur.

I made this “What is Your Pet Dinosaur’s Name?” to match the dinosaur party invitation. Guests looked up the name of their pet dinosaur based on the first letter of their first name and the month of their birthday.

I put a plastic dinosaur in each of these kraft boxes with windows and made a name tag based on all the guests’ name and birth month.

After they figured out the name of their pet dinosaur, they had to look through the boxes on the table to find the name tag with their pet dinosaur’s name and then they could take that one with them.

Dinosaur Party Shirts

When my family does parties we show up dressed for parties. Ha. We always wear shirts or outfits to go with the theme.

It turns out my parents had a surprise for Connor (and us). We got a knock at the door and this giant dinosaur showed up to the party.

My mom took a gamble wearing this inflatable dinosaur costume but luckily Connor thought it was funny rather than being scared.

Connor started off the party wearing his explorer outfit.

He later changed into his birthday dinosaur t-shirt.

My dad accompanied my mom by wearing this dinosaur trainer t-shirt.

Brent and I matched in our simple black dinosaur t-shirts. My hair is covering up mine but I am wearing this brachiosaurus t-shirt and Brent is wearing this triceratops t-Shirt. They were so soft and comfy.

If you are throwing a three rex or dinosaur party soon, I hope our party could provide you inspiration!

✨ Party Time ✨

It is so much fun to see it all come together and to see how happy it makes Connor. We liked surprising him this time with all the decor because his reaction was priceless.

Even at three he appreciates it all. He told us thank you and that the party looks really good.