A Puppy Paw-ty!!

For the past few years, I have been lucky enough to combine my daughter and son's birthday parties. Saves me tons of stress and time!  This year, our kids decided they wanted a puppy themed party.  I instantly got a ton of ideas!  I contacted Oriental Trading Co. about doing a product review about some of their puppy themed items.  They carry a ton of items that were perfect for this birthday theme, so I was excited to choose some puppy favors and neat decorations. They really made the party special, and I am so thankful to Oriental Trading Co. for helping me to add these special touches to the party!  Check out all the fun...

Invite:  I designed the invitations on Photoshop.  I decided on red, blue, and brown as the color scheme for the party.  #1) I just love those colors together.  #2) Both my kid's favorite color is blue #3) I found dog bowls at the Dollar Tree in those colors!  I backed the above invitation in blue or red card stock before mailing them out.

I created this sign for the front door, but it was sprinkling outside at the beginning of the party, so I added the sign to the dessert table instead. I made the sign using my Cricut cutting machine, card stock, and foam board.

I found some puppy-themed fabric at Joanns Fabric Store to make birthday outfits for my birthday kiddos.  I made a pair for shorts for my son, and a skirt with an elastic waist for my daughter.  My daughter also made a necklace with the fabric and marbles.

I had some leftover fabric, so I placed it on the dessert table under the cake.

Check out the cute fire hydrant cupcake stands from Oriental Trading Co.!! I added these to my entry table with the sign for that first pop of fun at the party.  These cupcake stands are made of a thick foam board, so I found them very sturdy.  They were super easy to assemble, and I love how they displayed the PUP-cakes!

I made a Happy Birthday banner to match the colors of the party and included paw prints to play off the theme.

I also made these DIY fire hydrants for each of the tables.  The hydrant consists of an Oatmeal container, a paper towel holder cut for the sides and top, an upside down bowl ($1 for a 4/pack at Dollar Tree), an empty ribbon spool, and a milk carton top.  I hot glued them all to the oatmeal container and then spray painted them. I used a spray paint primer for this.  The puppy scrapbook paper I found at Michaels.

I cut dog bones out of card stock to decorate the tables and to place on my utensil pails.  The pails I bought at the Dollar Tree.

Party Activities:  When it came to party activities, these stuffed puppies and balloon puppy kits from Oriental Trading Co, were a huge hit!

Each friend at the party got to Adopt-a-Puppy to take home.  The package of plush puppies from Oriental Trading Co came with 6 different breeds of puppies which was great.  They were also the perfect size. I also love that the Adopt-a-Puppy served as an activity for kids to do at the party, but also was the party favor.  Most of the kids took their puppies into the bounce house, fed them lunch, walked them around the party, and really had a great time with them.

After the kids chose their puppy, they created a collar with his name on it. Since my kids are only 5 and 7, I bought colorful pipe cleaners so the kids could string the beads themselves and tie it around the puppy's neck without needing parental help.  The alphabet beads, star beads, and pipe cleaners I purchased at Michaels craft store. Some of the kids even made a leash out of the pipe cleaners and walked their dogs around the party!

Making their puppy collars...so cute!

The kids also filled out Certificates of Adoption for their pupplies. I made these on Photoshop. My daughter named her puppy Snowy! 

Four of the breeds with their cute collars.  Welcome to our family Cute Pup, Snowy, and Star!

The second activity for kids to do was these puppy balloon kits from Oriental Trading Co.  The kit comes with 12 balloons, the cardboard stand, and sets of stickers to make each puppy. The kids had fun making them, and again, they didn't need parental help to create them.  A+ in my book!

Happy kids with their finished products!  Jenna's even gets a kiss!

Menu:  There are so many things you can do with a puppy-themed menu! Hot dogs are cheap and easy, so we did those.  I added some fixings to make it a little more interesting and used dog breeds to label the various options.

I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids that did not like hotdogs.  I bought a large dog bone cookie cutter from a local cake shop to slice into bones. As you can see from the photo, they were popular! I didn't even get a photo before they were almost gone!

I also made a yummy PAW-sta salad. I should have made the cheese with a mini bone cookie cutter, but I didn't have time to make it back to the cake shop to purchase one.

I used the same large cookie cutter to make watermelon to look like bones.

For snacks, I served PUP-corn, pretzel FETCH sticks, Scooby Snacks, and PAW-tato chips with dip.  I made all the labels on Photoshop.  The containers all came from the Dollar Tree.

Here's another cool item from Oriental Trading, Co -- a fire hydrant beverage dispenser!  It was so cute and worked great.  I filled it with blue Kool-Aid instead of water.

I made this Golden Doodle Puppy cake after finding the idea and recipe here.  I used frosting for the collar, malted milk balls for the eyes and nose, and black licorce (that I cut into diamonds) for the claws.

I made the paw prints on the cupcakes using Hershey kisses and chocolate chips.  Just stuck them in upside down...super easy.

Everything turned out great for this PAW-ty and the kids had a great time.  Special thanks again to Oriental Trading Co. for helping me out with this party!

"This review is based strictly on my opinion. Others may have a different opinion or experience with the products listed above. I was provided the samples free of charge by Oriental Trading Company and I provided my honest opinion. No other type of compensation was received for this review.”