Now for those of you who don’t know about Dora the Explorer, let me bring you up to speed quickly. It is a TV Series on NickJnr about a little Latina girl who with her best friend Boots, an English speaking monkey wearing red boots, go on many an adventure.
Dora wears a purple talking backpack, whose name is Backpack; that not only contains the tools to help her on her adventure but also a talking map called, well… Map. Map shows the route to follow on the adventure … check out this clip if you don’t know about Map…
Now the plan was to have this Dora the Explorer theme party, but then also have the kids go on an adventure (in our back garden). Who do you call when you’ve got a place to go? The Map!
I decided to make 3 “Maps”, one for each activity. The activities were going to be (1) Be a star catcher and catch the stars, (2) Pin the tail to Swiper the Fox and (3) Find the sweets that the Pinata has hidden. Posts coming soon!
I went to the local fabric store and bought 1/2 meter of cream coloured leatherette material (aka fake leather) it cost me R35,00. I then cut 3 pieces from it approximately 45cm wide by 25cm high – but I cut it into a wedge shape…
1. Wedge shaped and on the “material” side Map drawn
2. Map coloured in with frame
3. Roll it up to see where to draw Map’s face
4. Draw Maps face on the “leather” side
On the material side of the piece cut I drew a picture of Map with a frame around him. I then rolled it up and then on the “leather” side of the wedge I drew Maps face.
5. Map #3 taking shape
6. Map #3 Coloured in
7. Map #1 Coloured in
8. Map #3 Coloured in
Next I drew the pictures inside the frames and coloured them in with crayons that my son had. Here you can see how the 3rd Map is taking shape, and the coloured in ones of Map #1 and Map #2. I just want to state on record that drawing Swiper the Fox is bloody difficult!
9. 99% Complete Maps
10. Map #1 Complete
11. Map #2 Complete
12. Map #3 Complete
I then handed over the maps to my wife to write the instructions. The reason for this is that some say that doctors have a neater handwriting than what I do…
So what you think? I think they are pretty cool and should last many years 🙂
Be sure to check out my other post on other Dora the Explorer party decorations.
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