RE-ceiving Guests: Dora the Explorer Party

THE BIRTHDAY GIRL AND HER BACKPACK PINATA.  When my daughter was 3, she loved Dora so we used that as her birthday party theme.  The Dora back pack pinata above was a gift from my parents for the party.  It was bigger than my daughter. LOL. A man from across the border in Mexico would make them and a party shop in our home town would import them for us.  With all the problems in Mexico and all the restrictions making it harder to cross the border, the party shop unfortunately stopped taking order for these pinatas awhile ago.  It's too bad because I though they were so pretty. The man who made them was an artist really.

INVITATION:

We took this photo of our daughter to use for invitations like we did for her Peter Rabbit, Madeline, Hawaiian, Make Believe and Fairy Princess parties.  I loved the photo, but when I printed out the postcard invites, I ran out of ink with barely half done. It had taken awhile to format.  At the time, I was also still busy making party favors and game components and  I decided I was spending too long on this party task.  To make things easier, and to finish the invites faster, instead of going to the store for another printer cartridge, I bought some standard Dora invitations, wrote in the info, and pasted the picture in those. 

For the Invitations and Thank you notes, I bought personalized address stickers on ebay.  I didn't know about etsy at the time, but I would look there now for this product.

I also bought personalized candy wrappers from the same vendor on ebay.  Again, now I would look for this item on etsy.com.  I don't have a copy of ours to share, but the picture below is similar.

You can order these here: Etsy store

ENTERTAINMENT:

For a preschooler party, the bouncy house is pretty typical fare.  We got a Dora themed house and put up a white tent in the front yard which was much bigger than our back yard.  Also, it had a fence around it so kids could run around safely which worked for this casual party.

Does it look enormous?  It really was, but our daughter *LOVED* it.  It was hard to get her out of there to do other party games.

"Dora" was at the party.   My daughter's older cousin, Sara, dressed as Dora, and is about to surprise my daughter at the party above.  Sara was very sweet to do this for me as a favor. She came dressed in the red shorts, purple tee shirt and tennis shoes and I gave her the pith helmet and backpack to wear to be "Dora The Explorer."

Sometimes my daughter would forget "Dora" was there, but then I'd see her smiling at Dora and checking her out.  It helped make the party extra special even if my daughter wasn't entirely sure what to make of it due to her age.

BREAKING THE PINATA. The pinata was hard to fill for 3 year olds. I think I used raisins, goldfish, fruit rollups and one bag of pinata filler candy.

All the kids sitting down sorting thru the loot after the pinata was broken.  I think my daughter is reaching for a box of raisins.  The funny thing is for kids this young raisins and goldfish are as much a treat as candy.

The adults decided to help the kids fill their bags after awhile.  The kids were so young, they each got a few things and became fascinated with that, but there was still more loot to be picked up.  It took some prompting to keep them going. 

TREASURE HUNT. The next activity was a treasure hunt in the back yard using Map, Dora's friend who helps her thru each adventure.  I drew a map for the game and had one copy laminated for each of the kids.  I am sorry to say I don't seem to have one anymore especially because I was happy with how they came out.   I made "Crocodile Lake" from blue butcher block paper from a teacher supply place cut out in the shape of a small lake and I bought an inflatable crocodile to place on the blue paper lake for the kids to cross.  I put my daughter's talking Swiper the Fox doll in the yard and somehow we ended the game with the kids getting their favors that were hidden in our dog house.  Everything they got went into a favor bag I made for each of them from purple felt to look like Dora's back pack.  The favor bags are above. I bought one long piece of purple felt and cut strips so I could "sew" up the sides with purple yarn and leave a little extra on one side to be the flap to close the bag.  I also cut out 2 strips of felt to "sew" into the back with purple yarn.  My daughter says the treasure hunt is her strongest memory from this party and her favorite activity of any of the parties we've thrown her.

At the end the party and we ate cake while we watched a personalized Dora video I had ordered for my daughter's birthday.   The youtube video below shows what the personalized video was like.



FOOD:

I spent a lot of time working on the entertainment, so I didn't spend as much time on the food. I had a local restaurant called Papasito's cater everything except the 7 layer dip which I made.  I took everything out of the boxes and poured it into Fiestaware bowls my SIL, Yvonne, lent me. I also put all the chips in a jumbo stainless steel bowl and placed all the food on a long table with a Dora tablecloth as a buffet.

MENU

7 layer dip

Chicken & Steak fajitas

Rice & Beans

Tortillas

Guacamole

Chile con Queso

Salsa & chips

Snow Cones

Cake

DRINKS:  Bottled water & soda

 DECORATIONS:

CHARACTER BOARDS. In the right corner of this pic is a Dora the Explorer posterboard I made as a decoration. I recycled the posterboards I has used the previous year for the Madeline Birthday party.  Next to the Dora is a smaller poster of Tico, the squirrel.  At the end of the food line, there is a little bit of the Swiper The Fox board visible as it is propped against the pecan tree.  Nickelodeon has instructions how to draw Dora and Boots here.  I free hand drew and painted the other characters. It took a little bit of time, but it wasn't hard. I only used very basic art skills to make them.

The Swiper the Fox decoration is more visible in this picture.  The really large standing picture of Boots the monkey in a tree and Benny the Bull standing next to him I painted with cut outs for people to poke their heads into is slightly visible next to the tent.  I put out another long table with a snow cone machine and snow cone fixings, next to the food tables.

The Boots & Benny the Bull picture is slightly more visible in this picture.  I bought some colorful balloons and a couple Dora mylar balloons to make things festive.  I also saw some inflatable monkeys from Oriental Trading Company to  hang as decorations for $3 each when I ordered the candy  for the pinata and binoculars for the favor bags.  They still sell the them if you are interested. Link to inflatable monkeys

I used a small licensed Dora pinata as the centerpiece of the kids' table.  The long and low kids table was a find by my sister-in-law, Yvonne. It has a formica type top and isn't pretty, but, once you covered it with a tablecloth, it was perfect for kids' parties. Many, many friends with similar aged kids asked to borrow the table and chairs because they worked so well. On a tip from my friend, Martha, a major bargain shopper, I bought the white plastic chairs from Big Lots for a couple of dollars each. I used them for many birthday parties and play dates. They were a great purchase.  I thought the party turned out well, but the important thing is my daughter still says this was a favorite party and that made all the extra work worth it for me.

WRITTEN BY ELDAROSE

You might also be interested in a Peter Rabbit Birthday Party and Easter Playdate HERE

A Madeline Kids Party can be seen HERE

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RE-ceiving Guests: Madeline Kids Party

 THE THEME & INSPIRATION

Madeline is an AMAZING series of children's stories by Ludwig  Bemelmans about the adventures of a little girl in Paris living in a boarding school run by nuns.  My daughter really liked Madeline when she was 2 so that year we threw her a Madeline birthday party.   She is pictured above in her Madeline costume in front of a poster board display I made for the party.  The blue coat and hat are part of an official Madeline costume I bought online several years ago from a store. If you want one, currently several  costume versions are for sale on ebay.  My SIL, Yvonne, made my daughter the yellow dress as a birthday gift because the coat was itchy and my daughter didn't like wearing it without something underneath.

THE INVITATION

The Madeline books and the Madeline tv specials all begin with the same lines, "In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.  In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed. They left the house at half past nine  In two straight lines in rain or shine- the smallest one was Madeline."  I decided to alter the rhyme for the invitation, and as we did for our daughter's Peter Rabbit Birthday Party, we took her picture with a doll of the theme to use in the party invitation. 

Front outside of the invitation. I bought personalized Madeline stickers on ebay and used them for the invitation return address, thank you notes and for the favors. 

Back of the invitation above.  Madeline is not as popular as other children's characters so finding her party supplies takes a little more effort.  I found the invitations, thank you notes, a birthday banner, balloons, blow toys, party hats, plates, plastic cups, and stickers like the one above that I used to seal the invitations online. The stickers sheets were put in the plastic cups with the blow toys as favors along with some candy.

Using Available Resources.  There was a French Antique shop in Austin that had a large Eiffel Tower statue in front of it and I took my daughter to take pictures there.  I considered using these pictures for the invitations, but felt the close up ones were better since I already had the pre-made invitations.  If I had printed my own, then I probably would have used an image like this one for it somehow.  Still I like the pictures we took there.  Sometimes ideas work out, sometimes they don't.  But, I think it is good to see them as part of a creative process which is what I enjoy about entertaining.

DECORATIONS

Making Decorations:  I only had a few mylar Madeline balloons so I bought a lot of blue and yellow balloons to make the party more festive. I also bought poster boards and drew pictures of Madeline, Miss Clavel (the nun who runs Madeline's school) and Pepito, the Spanish boy next door and Madeline's friend. I also used a box to represent Madeline's boarding school.  My parents gave us a large pinata in the shape of The Eiffel Tower since Madeline lives in Paris.   A friend of ours who is into photography very generously took many pictures at the party and shared them with us.  If any of the pictures look good, chances are they are his.  If you don't like the photo, most likely I took it.  Above Photo credit: Leon Little.

Home made Decoration.  This is my Madeline board.  It may seem intimidating at first to make your own decorations, but I have very basic artistic skills and I was able to copy the characters fairly well.  Many children's stories feature characters that are fairly easy to draw.  I got the boards at Office Depot and used latex paints to color them in. 

An old house in Paris that was covered with vines.  I covered a large cardboard box with maroon poster paper that I bought at a Teacher's Supply store.  The roof is made of gray poster paper I got at the same time.  The door and steps are made from regular construction paper and the hinges and handle are painted on with permanent marker.  Around the holes I cut out for windows, I placed extra pieces of cardboard I painted gray and drew slats on with black marker to represent shutters.  I used a green marker to make planters in front of the house and I cut out little pieces of green construction paper to glue on as vine leaves.  There was probably an easier way to do this, but I was very excited about this party for months beforehand so I never thought twice about the time it would take to make a project for it.  

Standing Poster board.  I chose a large standing poster board for Miss Clavel and Pepito because I wanted to cut out their faces and use heavy duty tape to support a hinge/door effect so people could poke their heads in and take pictures that way.   I helped support the board by cutting out another large piece of cardboard and sticking it in the back as a stand also using heavy duty tape to attach it.

My husband and daughter goofing around with the cutouts as we are setting up for the party.  I was hoping they wouldn't be the only ones to use the cutouts.

I was so happy to see guests got into the spirit and posed with the cutouts.

So fun.  I used the poster board cutout again the next year for my daughter's Dora birthday party.   I just painted on the other side.  Cut outs invite guests to be silly and smile and that was the mood I was going for.

In this photo, you can see a little of the back part of the cutout stand and how I used another piece of cardboard to support it.

ENTERTAINMENT

For kids this young, I thought it was important to keep the activities easy.  I hired a petting zoo that bought small farm animals to my front yard.  The kids LOVED it.

Seriously, look at those smiles?

I like how his tongue is sticking out.  Pony riding takes some concentration. LOL.

The kids roamed around with the animals on leases, too. 

Adorable, right?  I have a LOT of pictures of the kids with the animals. They make for great photo ops.  If you don't want to hire a petting zoo, most zoos allow kids' parties in their petting zoos or you could just get some friends to bring  2 or 3 small animals to your home for the kids to check out.  Bunnies, baby chicks, baby pigs, even kittens and puppies are all going to enchant kids and adults alike and make fantastic photo subjects.

I mean look at that smile.

One more pic because I was so happy with how entertained everyone, including the adults, were by the petting zoo.

The Eiffel Tower Pinata my parents gave us was gorgeous.  I was a bit sad to destroy it.

The kids weren't sad about it though.  They all enjoyed taking their turns hitting the pinata.  My daughter above is adjusting her hat to hit it again.

FOOD AND DRINK

Since Madeline is French, to keep the theme we offered French champagne and/or champagne mimosas to the adults. The indoor food table had ham and cheese filled croissants, strawberries and a spinach quiche.   Outside, we had a large tub full of water bottles, bottled French lemonade and ice beside an open container of chilled pink lemonade punch.

On the outside table, I also set out a plate of pate beside a plate of baguette slices for people to nibble on. 

Sorry, I don't have any more pictures of the menu to share.  Above you can see one of the guests, enjoying a plate of the party food.

I had seen a Madeline hat birthday cake made from two round cakes (use cake mixes to make two 9- inch cakes and cut the top one back to be smaller, like only 6 inches in diameter) stacked one on top of the other, frosted with yellow icing with a red ribbon made from Fruit roll up online that I thought was adorable. I showed it to my SIL, Yvonne and she suggested she could make it, but she was very busy around that time so I decided to have my parents bring up a Madeline themed cupcake cake from our hometown baker for the party.  The morning of the party, Yvonne showed up with the Madeline hat birthday cake.  Yvonne explained that was some mistake/issue with icing it, but it still turned out super cute, imo.  We used that as the main cake and the cupcake cake as the backup.  If you are interested in making one, I think the original article I saw was this Family Fun one HERE

The cupcake cake.  Sorry, we didn't take a picture before the kids starting digging in for cake.  This gives you the gist though.  For younger kids, cupcake cakes can be really nice because the portions are small and the kids can eat them on their own even as young as two. 

There will be a mess after the cake, of course, but that is part of the fun with kids this young.

FAVORS

Balls are a great favor for small kids.  I found Madeline balls and gave one to each of the kids who attended the party.  They played with them a bit at the party and my daughter still has hers.  I also gave out plastic Madeline cups with candy, stickers, some Madeline coloring pages I found online, crayons and those trinkets they sell at party stores, but honestly I think the balls were the big hit favor.  My friend, Martha, gave her daughter a ball and bubble party about this age with lots of balls for the kids and different types of bubbles and I am sure it was a big hit.  Kids this young cannot do complicated activities so keeping planned activities simple works best I think.

If you are planning a Madeline party and want some info, please leave a comment and I will be glad to offer whatever help I can.  Actually all feedback is very much appreciated.

WRITTEN BY ELDAROSE

PETER RABBIT BIRTHDAY PARTY & EASTER KIDS PARTY IDEAS ARE HERE

DORA THE EXPLORER BIRTHDAY PARTY DISCUSSED HERE

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