We just had my daughter's 7th birthday party and it was such a blast. I was thrilled to borrow the idea for a DOG SHOW party after reading about it on this site. I had
been stumped on what to do after last year's veterinarian party. My daughter is a dog freak.
INVITATIONS were simple and homemade. I bought a paw print hole punch and made 3 holes along the bottom of tan cards. We used tiny dog breed stickers and wrote, Come, Sit, Stay, Play.¯ Inside announced the party details and asked guests to bring their favorite stuffed dog for a dog show. DECORATIONS were supplies from The Dog party supplies. I bought an adorable banner from Birthday Express. Butcher Paper was used for big signs saying¯ CC's Dog Show and CC's Grooming Salon. My daughter decorated those to her heart's content. Many paw print balloons made the place festive. I hung cut out dog bones and turquoise curly ribbon all over. ACTIVITIES: As the guest arrived, I jotted down their dog's names. They went to a big table to decorate collars and dog bowls. They could either make a collar out of pre-cut foams strips and decorated with foam shapes and stick on jewels. Or they could string pony beads onto a pipe cleaner (this worked so well as the beads didn't fall all over.). Circular key tags were used for the name tags. I bought the Kooky Chew¯ dog bowls from B.E. I removed the candies and they decorated the bowls with metallic permanent markers, stick on jewels, foamies. For the guests that finished early, we had pet shop sticker pages (Oriental Trading). Also, Scooby bone crackers were out for snacking on. The guests were also able to spend time at the grooming salon. I gathered up all the toy brushes we had as well as a pretend hair dryer, scissors, etc. I had towels and a little tub for pretend bathes (with a bottle of shampoo). We tied ribbon bows on to little rubber bands so the kids could easily put bows on. When everyone was done, we sat in a circle for the dog show. Each kid took a turn in the middle and told about their dog, made barking sounds, anything they could think of. I asked questions if they didn't know what to say. I was so surprised that not one kid was too shy and they all enjoyed it. I stepped away for a minute and decided on a prize for each dog. Some categories were best groomed, itty-bittyiest, prettiest eyes, etc. I had made blue ribbons out of a circle of blue card stock with 2 pieces of blue ribbon glued on. I also hot glued tiny clothes pins on the back so they could be attached to the collars. Everyone gathered again and each earned a prize. They just loved this. Finally, we played pin the nose on the puppy, which was ordered from Oriental Training. We took some group pictures and then headed for cake. CAKE: I bought a cake, which was decorated with an edible picture of a puppy. It had cute dog bone sprinkles on it. I made a sign and put it on the cake to announce that we are getting a new puggle puppy. PARTY FAVORS were white lunch bags stamped with paw prints. Inside was the Kooky Chew candy. I put it in a baggie and reused the sticker that had come on the original package. Also included was a dog book mark and plastic dog (Oriental Trading) and also a mini velvet coloring picture of a dog from the dollar store. This party was 2 hours which is shorter than my previous parties. The timing was perfect. My one piece of advice is to assign picture taking to a friend so that you don't have to worry about it. One of my good friend's takes great pictures and those have been such a treasure to me. It was a terrific party if I do say so myself.
