Paw Patrol Birthday Party

I don't know how it is for you when it comes time to plan a kid birthday party, but for me things don't ever seem to go my way.  First my kid will pick a theme that either doesn't exist in easy to buy premade supplies or it is a theme that is not easily made into a gender obvious party.  Case in point Paw Patrol.  It's a cute show about dogs that help solve problems on Nick Jr.  Check out info on paw patrol here.  Problem is that my daughter wanted the party and everything in the stores she thought looked like it was for a boy.  Where is Skye?  Where is Everest?  Not on the party supplies or any of the goodies that's for sure.  So off I went to Etsy and Pinterest in hopes of finding ideas and supplies.  Much to my dismay my daughter hated everything she saw.  (Side note here, they have tons of adorable stuff on both sites.  My kid was just being picky....shocker)  Only solution was to make something and let her pick the items used to create it. 


I gave her limits on colors because I am always concerned about budget and wanted to reuse some party supplies I already had in primary colors.  Lucky for me the show is in primary colors so she agreed.  First up was the invitation. 

                                           

We had to go with primary colors because what party stuff we could find was in those. It turned out cute!  Best part was my daughter loved it. 

Next up, food. We decided on pizza, fruit, salad, and a few other fun foods. Then I made up a cute little "menu" and framed it. To decorate the food table I used store bought table cloths and a fabric banner that I had from previous parties. I bought dog food bowls from the dollar store to put my daughters favorite cookie dough dip in and used scooby graham cracker snacks as the cookies because I couldn't resist how authentic they looked to a milk bone dog treat.  Another way to maintain the theme of the party was cutting watermelon into the shape of dog bones. They looked cute and it was super easy with a cookie cutter. 

                                           

    

 Since it was a pool party I put out water balls in a bucket to "play fetch" with. We decided for a 5 year old party the pool was enough and didn't do any additional games. 

I made chocolate cupcakes and added Reese's puff cereal as the topper to look like a pile of dog food for her cake. Side note, DO NOT PUT CEREAL ON UNTIL RIGHT BEFORE YOU ARE GOING TO SERVE. If you put on earlier the cereal will absorbs the moisture from the frosting and get soft. No one likes mushy cereal for breakfast soon one will want to eat that on a cupcake. 

Last thing I needed to figure out was a the take home goodie bag. I had seen on Pinterest all these adopt-a-pup favors. Super adorable!  So I ordered the pups from Oriental Trading suggested. In theory kids were just going to take a pup and some candy home. But reality set in pretty quick after the pups arrived and were smaller than a happy meal toy. In order to salvage the poor pups my mom and I used scraps of leftover tulle I had from previous tutu making sessions to make the little dogs tutus. We used elastic hair bands and did slip knots all the way around. They were displayed around a paper towel holder.The kids were also able to make a collar for their pup. I raided my craft closet and found elastic and beads from necklace making my kids had done. We used these to let the kids spell out their pups name or just bling them out a little. 

What new pup doesn't want a dog bed of their own? I realize as I wrote this I sound like a hoarder...however I had tons of small boxes in my gift wrap box that I had purchased from pick your plum. Using leftover fabric from a baby blanket I had made a friend I whipped up a bunch of those. To create I just cut a square larger than the box then added bunting and hot glued it to the inside of the box they were not uniform by any means. But God bless kids they don't notice the small details and loved that their dog got it's very own bed.   What started as the cheapest looking party favor ever ended up being one of the most adorable take home gifts I have ever done. 

When we were at The Dollar Store grabbing dog bowls there were dog treat containers next to them. I wasn't sure what I could use them for but they were too cute to pass up. So a candy bar was created with primary color candies!  We got gumballs from Party City, skittles from Target (they were on cartwheel), suckers from Oriental Trading, and little doggy bag paw patrol containers from the dollar spot at Target. 

Overall the party was a success. Kids had fun and no one noticed that I had to make a lot of the stuff to pull off the paw patrol theme which is always a good thing in my book!  

 We got this shirt for her thank you card picture.  My kids are all tall like their daddy so no 5T sizes work anymore which sucks because if you want a character tshirt they are hard to come by.  Zulily just happened to have as one of their daily deals Paw Patrol shirts in sizes 6 - 10 and they were personalized!

If you are planning a party I highly recommend checking out Pick Your Plum and Zulily daily for months prior to your party.  You can find some seriously adorable stuff at crazy reasonable prices.