A party! A big dog party!

One of my favorite books growing up was Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman. I was excited when I introduced it to my 2 year old son and he seemed to enjoy it just as much, but after reading it nightly for several months my enthusiasm for the book began to fade. It did, however, make my choice for a third birthday theme quite obvious.

I like to begin planning my parties at least a month in advance to give time to send out invites, order supplies and tackle all my DIY projects. I begin by perusing pinterest and doing a google image search to see if there are any other party ideas I can “borrow”. There is not a lot out there for Go, Dog. Go! parties so it proved to be a bit of a challenge, but ended up being a lot of fun to plan and execute.

Décor

One of my biggest DIY projects for this party was the paper fans and pennant banners. After searching online and not coming up with anything I really liked, I decided to make my own paper fans by folding and gluing scrapbook paper. I finished them off with printed images from the book and the scraps were cut down to make the pennant banners.

I found small wooden cars on orientaltrading.com that were very close to the cars the dogs ride around in in the book. I sculpted individual dogs onto each of them and used them to decorate the food table. For the door wreath, I simply glued on more images from the book.

I also had some blank canvases lying around so I decided to enlarge an image from the book and make it look like a giant book open on my fireplace.

Cupcakes

One of the first purchases I made for the party was my cupcake ferris wheel. I have always loved them and it was perfectly suited to one of the scenes in the book. To finish off the look, I scanned in photos of dog images from the book and printed and cut them out for cupcake toppers.

I also baked a second batch of cupcakes and displayed them on a tree stand I constructed from a candle holder covered in tissue paper and one of my round platters. I made dog cupcakes toppers and a ladder to finish it off to look like the big dog party scene from the end of the book.

FREE PRINTABLE
To print off your own cupcake toppers, my files are available here: Go Dog Go Cupcake Toppers Free Printable.
I printed  mine on photo paper, but cardstock would work as well.  I then taped the cut-out images onto paper lollipop sticks to be inserted into the cupcakes.  Cut down straws or coffee stir sticks would also be a good option.

Food

Big dogs and little dogs were served with all the fixings.

Sides included veggie and dip cups, chips, potato salad, stoplight fruit and chocolate coated rice krispie bones.

Candy Buffet

I decided to attempt a candy buffet with red, blue, orange and green candy to match my theme. I used a lot of glassware I already had around the house so it was fairly cheap and simple. I think the adults enjoyed the candy more then the kids!

Favors

Favors were these cute dog shaped lunch boxes I found at Ikea and filled with a couple of cans of playdoh and a bone and dog shaped cookie cutter.

I think that covers it all – thanks for looking! To see my party planning board on pinterest, please click here.
I have already started pinning for next year’s party and I am hoping the birthday boy with be on board with the Winter Olympic theme I am planning.