My 3 year old son had a dinosaur party. We did not send out invitations because the party had to be put off several times due to flooding. This was the year that Iowa flooded. Before we had even decided on what kind of party to have I found discounted plastic dinosaur eggs at the market one day shopping in the clearance section. I picked them up. I think I paid $2 for all 4 packs of 6. On a different shopping trip my son found these crust cutters that also cut your sandwich's into dinosaurs. I picked that up as well at a cost of $3. Later I went into Target and found in their dollar section a lot of dinosaur things. I asked my son if he wanted a dinosaur party and he said yes. So I went back to Target the following day and picked up the following: 3 large dinosaurs (different types) that roared $3., a roll of dinosaur stickers $1., foil dinosaur stickers $1., 10 wooden skeleton dinosaur puzzles $10., bath tablets that grow into dinosaurs $1., a packet of small dinosaur figures $1., a packet of small glow in the dark dinosaurs $1., a packet of dinosaur pencils for $1., and a dinosaur matching game for $1.00. I think I spent a little over $20.00. Later I ran across some foam dinosaur door hangers 4 for $1. so I picked up 3 packets. I always let my kids invite 7 kids so I plan for 10 kids. I then came to this web site and looked at some of these ideas for inspiration. Then I turned to the web to get recycling Ideas. We only had 7 kids because some of my son's friends moved away just before his party. To decorate I did several things. I took 2 sheets of cardboard and I cut 2 different types of dinosaur foot prints out of them. I spray painted foot prints across the lawn like 2 dinosaurs had walked across the grass. I only bought 1 can of spray paint at $1.99 but I wished that I had bought 2 so that I could have sprayed from both sides. A tip: mow your lawn as short as you can this helps to not waste paint. I also spray painted a line in the grass by our patio. I found this amazing craft project that showed me how to cut a milk jug into a dinosaur skull  and how to make a Pteranodon out of 2 milk jugs. I used our water gallon jugs so that I didn't have to wash them out. I also used a box cutter and that was easier than sizers. I spray painted the skulls white. I didn't actually get the Pteradon finished. I think I made 12 skulls. I hid them in my flower beds. I then took my son's dinosaur collection and removed the large ones and hid them in my flower beds too. I kept the small ones in a jar in case I needed an extra game. I took 7 small boxes left over from my daughters knight party and made them into dinosaur nests. I took long pieces of yarn and taped one end to the nest� and the other end to a piece of paper and wound the yarn around the yard and put the paper on the main walk. On the paper I wrote the names of each child attending. A few weeks before the party I took a square box that we got from one of our purchases and looked up 6 color pages of just dinosaurs with no back ground. I colored each a different color and made 6 of each dinosaur colored exactly the same. I have some talents with drawing so I made them as life like as I could. I taped 1 of each dinosaur to each side of the box and sat that out of reach of the kids. I taped the rest of the pictures to the sidewalk with duct tape. I worried this would not hold but it worked wonderfully. I then took toilet paper rolls and colored 2 exactly the same color and then took another toilet paper roll and cut a ½ inch strip off and smashed it flat. Then I folded the flat strip in 2. Then I took a piece of tape and taped each side of the folded strip to a toilet paper roll that had been colored. If you put it folded corner toward the side you look through the kids can pretend to adjust them to see through. I put it about ½ to ¾ of an inch back from 1 end. If I had this to do over I would add a long piece of yarn to hang it around their neck. I didn't have that and the kids kept dropping them all over the place. I also took a paper towel roll and colored it a matching color and gave both to children. If I had that to do over I would also put a bit of yarn on that too. I pre-made lunch. We had peanut butter and jelly dinosaur shaped sandwiches, chips, and strawberry lemon-aid. Our party got off wrong. Everyone was late...like 2 hours late. So my husband and I quickly improvised to make things work. We ate first. I had never done that before but it worked well. I didn't have to listen to kids say they are hungry and want to eat the whole time. The dinosaur sandwiches went over great. PARTY STARTED. Then I gave the kids their toilet paper roll and paper towel rolls and told them that if they got bored while at this party they could come look for dinosaurs in my flower beds. This worked great cause the kids could look for dinosaurs while waiting to do the game. I then explained that in the night dinosaurs were spotted walking around the neighborhood and that they had left special things for them to find. I let them 1 by 1 pick up their names on the papers and find their nests�. Something to remember is that you have to send the last piece of yarn that you put down first. If not they get tangled. It's important to go 1 at a time on this. I also told them that they had to remember what nest� was theirs and that they would be visiting it often through the day. In their nest was a plastic market bag. I told them to hold on to it to put their treasures in. Then we went to our patio and tried to drop dinosaur eggs (wiffle balls) into containers. The kids got frustrated that they didn't make it in so I ended up letting them put them in. Then they went to check their nests. My husband had put 3 dinosaur eggs into each box while we were doing that game. The kids popped the eggs on the grass. A week before the party I cut up the dinosaur stickers and stuck them inside the balloons. I also put in the dissolving dinosaur tablets. We left these till the morning of the party to blow up. The kids had a hard time popping some of them because they were so old. I suggest using newer ones. Then we went inside to play a game. We pretended that we were dinosaurs and rolled 2 fake rock balls that my son had from a construction set of his across the room. We rolled them to our fire place and back to a line. The kids all took turns and didn't care what teams they were on they just wanted to pretend to be dinosaurs and roll the ball's around. While inside my husband put  paint brushes in their nests. After everyone had rolled the rock several times we went to the nests and the kids found their paint brushes. I explained that the reason why I had not planted a vegetable garden that year was because paleontologists had been to visit me and found fosciles in my garden plot. I took the fossil recipe (1 cup of used coffee grounds 1/2 cup of cold coffee 1 cup of flour 1/2 cup of salt) and made it a little thicker by adding more flour and shaped for each child a traditional bone and a rib bone. I wrote my sons name and the year on the rib, I had a little extra and I made my son a stone like pendant with a W on it. I poked a hole in it with a toothpick from side to side. That took the longest. Then I baked them. After I baked them I put a piece of yarn through the pendant and tied a knot in it. I made sure it would fit on my husband's head. I burried them in the garden plot and marked each kids spot. I put the extra necklace in my sons plot. I showed each where to dig. They all had a blast. I left more of the bones exposed on the younger ones and almost completely burried the older kids bones. They enjoyed brushing off the dirt and had to be reminded that they needed to check their nests. My husband had dropped in the dinosaur pencil while we were digging fossils. He had also hid the dinosaur eggs I had bought. I had took out the easter candy and tossed that in the trash and shoved in a small dinosaur figure. I had two types of eggs and I put a regular dinosaur in one type of egg and a glow in the dark dinosaur figure in the other type. The kids then hunted the eggs. This concept was a little hard for them to understand but they got it figured out. We as normal lost an egg and my husband had slipped away to buy the forgotten ice cream so we had to wait to find the last egg. While the kids milled around the yard they used their toilet paper rolls to look for the eggs. We then had a race. The kids jumped from 1 foot print to another. I have a walk that runs through my yard and I colored foot prints across it with chalk. The kids had a blast. They each ran across each set of prints several times. While the kids did that my husband put the door hangers into the nests. The kids then visited their nests. By this time the kids had all dumped all their treasures into their nests. If I had to do it over again I would not give them a bag and just told them to put their items into their nests. Then we played the Dinosaur dice game. I had the kids line up and 1 at a time take the dice and roll it across the lawn. The dinosaur that it landed on was where they went to. The game took a long time but the kids loved it. We didn't have a winner so I called them all winners and they went to check their nests. My husband had dropped in the wooden dinosaur puzzle while we played the game. We then went inside to open presents. I had stumbled across a game to help keep the kids back but since their was only 2 gifts the game didn't work and we just gave the gifts the traditional way. The game was to play a song. I had picked out Lauri Burckners We Are the Dinosaurs song. You put down numbers on the ground. In a hat you have matching numbers and you play the music the kids walk around. The birthday child sits in the center. You stop the music and pick a number and the kid with that number gives the gift. Then they sit outside the circle. We then had cake and ice cream. I made cup cakes for the kids and cake for the adults. In the end each kid took their nest home with them and I had little to pick up. Favors: Each kid got a wooden dinosaur skeleton puzzle, dinosaur stickers, dissolving tablets, door hanger, penile, 2 dinosaur figures, 2 dinosaur eggs, 2 fossils, and a paint brush. My kids still hide their fossils around the house and brush them with the paint brushes.