Dog Days of Summer Party

Well, it's that time of year again where the Walkush family goes into full on party and event planning mode through the remainder of the year.

First up is always Jaxon's birthday. This year, he requested a puppy or dog themed birthday party. Considering his birthday is smack dab in August, which is still very hot in North Carolina, I thought we'd invite all of the kids over for a few hours of Slip 'N Slide and call it a "Dog Days of Summer" party.

Here are the details:

Invitation

I turned to Evite for a free email invitation. They have a ton of themes to choose from, and wouldn't you know that dog, puppy, paw print was one of them? Make sure to check them out for any theme party you might have. I think you'd be surprised at how many themes they have! And they keep track of the guest list for you, which is very convenient when you're doing the rest of the party planning.

Menu

For the menu, we served standard party fare and then labelled it creatively. We had a few special dog themed treats mixed in:

• Cupcakes (pupcakes)
• Potato chips (paw-tato chips)
• Chex Mix (puppy chow)
• Scooby Snacks (these are dog bone shaped graham crackers that you can purchase at your local grocery store)
• Dog Treats (Scooby Doo gummy snacks)
• Walkers Dog Shaped Shortbread Cookies (these are dog shaped cookies that you can purchase at your local grocery store)
• Red and blue Kool-Aid Jammers (to match the color scheme of the decorations)

The Scooby Snack graham crackers turned out to be the perfect toppers for the cupcakes:

The Kool-Aid Jammers fit perfectly into my vintage Cheerwine soda crate (which you've last seen me use as a Christmas decoration):

Decorations

For decorations, I opted to use classroom decor pieces in the Hot Diggity Dogs and coordinating Black, White & Bold design schemes. (The dog and puppy themed party supplies that I had found were either for very young children, were for girls, or were character themed, e.g. Paw Patrol).

So, I used EZ letters, a hole punch, and some cut-outs to create a Happy Birthday Banner:

I hung some extra cutouts from the chandelier and used a few more to create a small banner for the birthday boy's chair:

I labelled large library pockets with letter stickers for the kids to use as their goodie bags:

I used mini cutouts to decorate the food table. I punched 2 1/2" circles of  coordinating yellow card stock and labelled them with each item. Then, I used clear packing tape to attach both the yellow circle and the dog mini cutout to a wooden skewer from the back. 

I cut the skewer for the cupcakes to the same length as the two circles (combined) and then taped the whole thing to the top of the cupcake display stand. I placed the other skewers directly into the bowls holding the goodies.

Activities

The main activity for our Dog Days of Summer party was Slip 'N Slide. I didn't recognize until we set it up that it matched pretty well to the other party decor: teal, yellow, and red. (Long time blog readers might recognize that inflatable dalmatian from our Firefighter/Firetruck Birthday Party!)

Here's the birthday boy on its inaugural slide:

We also had a pinata because my boys just love them! I did find many dog pinata choices, but we ended up choosing a cute brown and white puppy with a teal collar. Remember, pinatas always hold more candy than you think they will, so don't be intimidated by one you think might look small.

And here's our traditional photo of the birthday boy with the pinata remains on his head. :-)

All in all the party was a success, and I need to get crackin' on the next one! Hope this will give you some ideas should you need to plan a dog or puppy themed party in the future.

Happy party planning!

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