The day has come and gone!!! I'm so excited to share everything with you guys! As I've shared before, our oldest daughter just turned TEN (yesterday!), and as a young lady with a lot of passion and a really big heart, she asked to have her party to support a local dog rescue organization called
Coco's Heart Dog Rescue. Our pet dog, Bentley, is a Coco's Heart rescue pup, and he's been part of our family since November--he's a quirky, sweet, silver standard poodle, and our girl wanted tone able to help more rescue pups like him.
So, here ya' go!
The party was held at a local pet store--
Angel's Pet World--that we frequent and that coordinates with Coco's Heart for adoptions events and many other activities! We had the entire multipurpose play area to use for the party, an incredibly helpful staff at Angel's, and a couple of amazing volunteers from Coco's, along with not one but TWO ADORABLE cuddly, darling little rescue puppies, ready for adoption, and complete with puppy breath!!!! This may have been Katie's birthday party, but the
adoptable puppies, Donna and Rico, totally stole hearts!!
 |
Donna (left) is a black and white fluffy puppy is snuggling with
Rico (right) a tan and white puppy. |
We had a welcome sign on the front door to welcome guests to the party! We set up the party area with several "stations" for the kids. Once all the kids had arrived, they came to the "Adoption Center" and began by adopting their own puppies!
 |
Puppy Adoption Center: green grass play yard with white picket fence
and 16 stuffed animal puppies of all different breeds waiting to find
their forever home. |
The Adoption Center was super simple! The "grass" is two green outdoor rugs from the Dollar Tree, found in their household section. The fencing is also from Dollar Tree (available seasonally). The fencing is intended as garden border so I used an XActo knife and cut the fence "posts" even with the rest of the fence. Perfect! The puppies were purchased from Amazon and are a variety of puppy breeds of Webkinz Lilkinz. The kids gravitated toward them right away and several were already hoping for a specific puppy! Thankfully, everyone got "the" pup they were hoping for!
 |
| Adoption Certificates |
 |
Adoption Table: Adoption Certificates, Dog Leashes in a variety of bright colors,
matching Dog Collars, Puppy "Vitamins" in small containers (gummy bears), and "Dog Houses"
(gable boxes) the kids would decorate to take their things home in. |
After choosing their new pup, each kiddo received an official adoption certificate, and they each selected a name for their pup! We had a Mocha, Coco-Angel, Fluffy, and Kedzie among others! Some of the kids named their pups for pets they remember, some for the appearance of the pup, and some for people or organizations (in this case Coco's Heart and Angel's Pet World). The kids took their new puppies to the table and decorated a "house" they would take their things home in. They had markers, stickers, as well as paw prints of various sizes and shapes that they could color and glue onto their house as well. If there's one thing that surprised me about how the party went it's that the kids went to work on those houses and they were SILENT! You would NEVER have guessed there were eight kids sitting there--though I suspect we had a relatively crafty and artsy bunch of kids among us!
The adoption certificates my husband and I designed in Pages on my computer. I added a couple of paw print images to the certificate before printing and they were ready to go! The leashes and collars I made with a regular fabric ribbon (I purchased a bulk set for bow-making on Amazon). I found these awesome Avery labels with the metal ring and the inside of the circle label is white cardboard so the kids could design their name tag as they chose! My sewing machine is currently out of commission so I had to test run some fabric adhesives and see what worked (or in this case, didn't lol). It ended up that E6000 worked (which is great because I had some in my craft closet and I had NO clue what else to try!). I found the little lobster clasp things for the leashes on Amazon as well. I basically just slid the name tag onto the ribbon and glued it at the size I wanted it to be. I held the glued area for about 30 seconds and then laid them all out to dry. Same with the leashes, I chose a length, cut them, chose a size for the handle and simply made the circle handle and glued the ribbon. The claps were a little different in that I wanted a clean end so I folded them over the ring of the clasp, glued, and then folded and glued again so that it would look a little more finished. E6000 glue saved the day!
 |
The kids' "work table" where they decorated their houses with markers, stickers, and paw prints.
Serious work took place here! |
When they arrived, each guest also received a t-shirt! We purchased 5 packs of plain white t-shirts at Target and I had iron on transfer paper in my craft closet that has been waiting literally YEARS for a purpose--so we made the kids T-shirts with Coco's permission!
 |
Coco's Heart Dog Rescue t-shirts for the kids--Katie gave each guest a shirt when they arrived
and they all wore them throughout the party! |
As soon as the kids were done working on designing their houses, we moved to the big activity--we split the kids into teams and had them do a Scavenger Hunt for items we had already selected to purchase and donate to Coco's Heart Dog Rescue. We had chosen items from the rescue's wish list and had spoken with the store owner to see what food would be most useful to the rescue. We had a red team and a black team--the kids decided on a cart driver and a reader for the clue cards. We had the kids take one card at a time, read quietly so as not to give away their clues or ideas, and then they brought the item back to use to OK and give them their next card! They were so great, and it was so fun to hear them zip around the store running back and forth or looking for the items! We only had to help a couple of times--they were pretty darn independent and did such a great job! The funniest part of this was that we had a pet bed as one of the items, we forgot to tell the first team that we wanted them to choose a $30 bed and they went RIGHT for these waterproof amazing Audis of the pet bed world when we were looking for more of a VW Beetle.... I quickly mentioned the $30 pet bed limit and they went on their way to find that VW Beetle of the pet bed world I had originally hoped for. It made me laugh! The scavenger hunt cards I simply made in Pages on my computer, printed out on white card stock, cut out, and glued to red and black card stock respectively.
 |
Scavenger Hunt cards for the black team (left) and red team (right).
We gave them the same clues just in reverse order so that they wouldn't be
on the same path at all times. |
The scavenger hunt was a huge success!! The kids seemed to really enjoy running around the store and choosing their own items to donate to Coco's! The entire time I couldn't get the game-show "Supermarket Sweep" out of my head.... Do any of you remember that show?? I always thought it would be a total blast to run around the store with a cart and just throw things in! Plus, typically the "clues" on that show were for cleaning items and things like that.... hello.... who WOULDN'T love that?! (Welcome to my world loving cleaning, organizing, and craftiness.... It's a little twisted... It's ok. I've accepted it.)
To wind things down the kids had cake or cupcakes and ice cream, sang Happy Birthday to the Birthday Girl, played with the canine stars of the show, Donna and Rico, and played a game of "Life: Dog's Edition". Even the adults who stayed for the party got in some great cuddle time with these adorable puppies!
 |
Sign on the game of Life table: the frame is black, says "woof" and has a
silver dog bone on it and inside the sign says "A Dog's: the Game of LIFE" |
 |
The game of Life: Dog's Edition set up and ready to play--cars with a
cardboard picture of a dog inserted are ready to go! |
Huge thanks to
Pupcakes and Cupcakes bakery in Minneapolis, MN who made Katie's dog bone shaped cake (marble and white frosting, by request), and her Dog Food Bowl cupcakes (chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting, and Coco Puff "dog food" with red "dog bowl" cupcake liners! They were so adorable and so yummy!!!
 |
Dog bone shaped cake with tan icing and won paw prints on the top
and bones on the sides. "Dog food bowl" cupcakes
with red liners and Coco Puff "dog food. |
We also had a few snacks including "Chew Sticks" (pretzel rods), "Scooby Snacks" (Scooby Doo Graham Crackers by Keebler), and "Doggy Doo" bags which had Nestle Buncha Crunch candy inside. The "Doggy Doo" bags were the result of this parent caving under tween pressure. While mom thought this idea was mildly disgusting and somewhat mortifying, the new 10 year old thought it was downright HILARIOUS! The 10 year old won this time.
 |
"Doggy Doo" treat bags: paper bags with pow prints drawn on them.
Inside is Buncha Crunch candy and the bags say "Doggy Doo" |
Katie had asked that her friends not bring her birthday gifts but rather bring a donation of an item or a cash donation to give to Coco's Heart Dog Rescue in addition to the items we donated during the party. She received two large dog beds, a huge pack of puppy potty pads, and $115 in cash that she donated to Coco's during her party! We also donated two of each of the following from the scavenger hunt: dog bed, slip lead leash (especially good for the more skittish rescue pups when they're frightened), dog potty pads, regular walking leash, two toys per team, and dog food. We couldn't have been more proud of this kid--the party was a blast, the kids were incredibly well behaved with literally NO issues to speak of, and in just one day, as the clock turned her from a 9 year old to a 10 year old.... she helped dogs in need, she made a difference, and she followed a passion. This lady is one proud mama!
 |
Katie holding adoptable puppy, Donna, in front of the treat table
and "Happy Birthday" sign |
If you have any questions or would like to know more about our Rescue Pup Birthday Party or the projects we did, please just let me know! If you enjoy my projects, "Like"
Chronicles of a Crafty Blind Chick on Facebook and Pin this post on Pinterest! I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse into Katie's special day!! Crafty days are kicking into high gear over here with summer quickly approaching--more to come soon!
Happy Crafting!
 |
| Name logo: "Nicole" |
