Monday, March 11, 2013

Puppy Birthday Party

This last week I have been super busy getting ready for my baby girl's 3rd birthday.  It's hard for me to believe that she's already three years old!  The time has flown by.  This year, my little lady wanted a puppy party.  She loves (and I mean LOVES!) all puppies.  Many of our neighbors have dogs, and she gets so excited when she gets to love on them.  So, we went puppy crazy this week at my house, and I'm going to share some of the craft patterns and ideas that we used for the party with all of you here.  Make sure to read to the end so that you can get all the printables for your very own puppy party.

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This is the invitation that I drew for my daughter's party.  I think that most of the puppies are more interested in that cake than they are the little girl blowing out the candles :)  My daughter got super excited when she noticed that I included our neighbor's west highland terrier in the picture.  There's also an old english sheepdog, a pointer, a bulldog, and a red retriever in there.

I'm going to count this invitation as my month of March sketch.  Two birds; one stone! Buya!


The Puppy Party Decor!

This is the sign that my boys made for our front door to welcome the guests.  Sorry my cat loving friends; dogs only.  NO CATS ALLOWED :)


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We did some great and practical decor for the party.  I skirted the buffet with some tissue paper and bought some cheap dog bowls to use for the buffet table.


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A nice red and pink tulle swag with balloons hung across the entrance to the dining room!

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We also made another sign to cover some art I had on the wall over the buffet.  I think my 8 year old did a great job with the water colors.  It's an easy way to keep the theme going without pulling down any of your decor.  It also got me thinking how much my life revolves around art. I think I spent as much time designing the art that we were making for the party as I did on the guest list, games, and food combined.  

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We also made a cute and colorful "Happy Birthday" bunting to hang across the windows.  I wanted to do something simple.  I checked out a few printables available for free online and just didn't find what I wanted.  After a bit of computer work, I came up with a design that was simple, fun, and easy.
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I printed out the letter circles and water colored them to get a fun whimsical look, then I glued them onto flags cut from 12x12 cardstock.

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If you would like to make your own birthday bunting like mine, You can download my simple scribbles bunting circles and flag template here.  I've included the happy birthday sign and all the other letters too, plus the flag template.  These can easily be customized to any style that you want by simply changing the flag paper or printing the letters onto colored paper.  I love options, so the choice is yours.

If you do use my templates, I'd love to see what you make!

I"m also thinking about scanning the final buntings and making them available as finished printables.  I don't know if people would rather have just the water colored circles so they can adhere them onto flag papers of their choice of if they'd prefer the whole flag?  I was just thinking that printing 14 colored flags would use a lot of printer ink!  Any opinions?

Puppy Party Fun!

Here is our Adopt a Puppy station.  Each child got to adopt a small stuffed puppy to take home with them.  They each chose a puppy, named it, and gave it a collar (I found these cheap little collar bracelets as our version of the dollar store).

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You can download the bone sign for the adopt a puppy station here.  It comes in the blue and pink and also a green and blue.

adoption certificate coloring page

They then got to fill out and color an adoption certificate.  Again, I look around the net for a puppy adoption certificate that the children could color in, but didn't find exactly what I wanted so I ended up making my own version.  You can also download the adoption coloring page to use at your party here. This was great fun.

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Here's the birthday girl hard at work on her coloring page :) Notice she and her friend are wearing puppy ears.  The kids got to choose from a variety of puppy ears made from felt and glued onto a headband for their puppy makeovers. We also played games and had cake :) All the toddlers walked away sugared up and exhausted.  I know that I needed a nap when it was all over.

I know that this post was long and I'm glad that you stuck it out until the end :) I hope that you guys can use the printables that I've posted here.  Please remember that the images are for your personal use only and not to be redistributed or sold.

Let me know if you like them or if you have any problems accessing and downloading them.  Enjoy!


6 comments:

  1. Sounds like your daughter and her friends had a great time. You certainly deserve a rest after all that work!

    The flag template and bunting circles sound ideal as is, plenty of scope there for improvisation :)

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  2. Thank you! Came online to find a dog adoption certificate the kids could color, and this one is awesome!!!

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  3. Thank you so much for sharing these ideas!

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  4. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm so glad I stumbled across your site while planning for my daughter's puppy party!

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  5. Such a great party, seems like you all had great fun on that day. On my girl’s birthday at one of New York venues I too had a puppy party for her. All puppy themed decorations were done along with buffet goodies with dog themed. It was really a great day.

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