Go Diego Go Party 3yr

My son loves Diego so we decided to do his birthday with that theme again.  When I started shopping, I noticed there weren't a lot of Diego decorations.  I know this is because this is a small area, Diego is really big now, but I made to work. So What I did was: Colors: blue, orange, green, yellow. Invitations: I found some cute ideas from EBay, they even have things like admission tickets.  But I was pressed for time, so I just went to the nickjr.com website.  That's a really good site to find cheap decorations/ideas and they have several templates to choose from. As for decorations: I used brown crepe paper and streamed around the house and added green construction paper leaves.  Used extra green curling ribbon to resemble vines. Blew up balloons without helium in the color scheme and put them around the corners.  Nickjr.com has animals you can print up including the Bo Bo brothers so I strung them up so they hung through the vines (looks as if they're attached to the vines). I was lucky on this one, but found some thick tubes, covered them with brown felt paper (found at Hobby Lobby 5 for $1) and the top was a little plastic plant they sell. I got these 50% off at Hobby Lobby too (check periodically for their sales because I hate to buy something then see it cheaper).  But you can also get this effect with construction paper bases and hanging with fishwire or something clear.  I couldn't find a Diego table cover, so I bought a bright orange table cover and accented with bright green plates and orange cake plate, think the cups were green with brown napkins.  Plastic ware was clear and you could get that from the dollar tree.  For balloons I really wanted the mylar Diego, but couldn't find any! So instead I had helium balloons in the same colors of blue, yellow, orange and green.  Accented with animal print balloons (can find at oriental trading) and mylar animal balloons in frogs, birds (think rainforest).  I so forgot about this, but I was going to rent a big Diego costume and get our friends son (teenager) to come in like Diego stopping by for a bit.  I know the kids would have liked that.  We cleared the furniture in one room with these decorations and laid a nice green fabric on the floor (Hobby Lobby wait for specials, got it 40% off) so the kids could eat picnic style.  In the center of this was the Diego tree house centerpiece. Then of course we had the party hats Games: Found a Diego soundtrack on EBay and played that while they did safari bowling (oriental trading), on nickjr.com there's place the spot on baby jaguar. Also, animal charades, found printout on nickjr by going to 4kraftykidz.com (really has a lot of games and crafts directly from the nickjr site and I otherwise wouldn't have found them.  Activities: When the kids came in we put rainforest tattoos on them (oriental trading). At nickjr.com found so many things like napkin rings, printed up coloring placemats for the kids while waiting for guests to arrive, and safari picture frames. The parents helped (if necessary) with this one.  To go along with the frames  we had the kids take pictures. I really wanted the scene setter with Diego but couldn't find it! So instead I got a colored tablecloth from dollar tree as a backdrop, put some pintables around and balloons. I had a pull string pinata but couldn't find Diego, so I bought an animal one instead. We ended the party with watching a Diego film. Food: Initially for the cake I was all gung ho and wanted to do it myself with fondant. This is great, but you really need to ensure you can put the proper time aside.  Instead I ended getting a cake made from Albertsons, they're good and one less thing to worry about. We had a taco bar and taquitos for the smaller kids, black bean salad, seven layer dip, tropical fruit punch w/ sprite (makes it last longer), celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins (bugs on a log), found this cute idea to make cheese cut into rectangle chucks looks like bugs with chow mein, cupcakes with crumbled Oreos and gummy worms. Actually found a Diego candle from Michaels and these cute animal picks that I used for additional cheese chunks.  FAVORS. Yet again couldn't find bags, so I went to Hobby Lobby printed up different Diego Characters and pasted them on the bags.  After filling folded them over, punched two holes and tied shut with curling ribbon. Inside: I found rainforest finger puppets, animal lollipops (oriental trading) extra rainforest tattoos, Diego zipper pulls, animal crackers (dollar tree), with the kids so young, you don't have to load it up with candy. So I got some Dora/Diego fruit snacks you can find at the grocery store.  Also a piece of chalk for outside (Hobby Lobby), printed up info cards about baby jaguar and put inside too. And printed little thank you notes from nickjr.com.  The events went kids come in, tattoos, color placemats, eat, picture frame craft, while that dries, games, pictures, cake, presents, pinata and movie.  I would say no  matter what party, start looking early for decorations. You don't have to buy them, but look, so you know what your options are early. Otherwise you'll need to get really creative! But overall it was an awesome party.