Earlier this month we celebrated Bella's Sweet 16!
It is such a privilege and honor to have Bella and have her be in such good shape at 16 years old. She's been such a good girl her whole life and she was the absolute best girl the last couple years as I recovered from having blood clots. I don't know how I would have made it through that without her.
In honor of her special day I decided to invite some of our pup parent friends over to celebrate with us. Bella out lived all of her dog friends otherwise we would have invited them too!
I thought I would share some of the little details I did for her party incase you are interested in having a party for your pup! I kept it pretty budget friendly too!
Invites
For the invites I just made a cute graphic in Canva and texted it to our friends with the party info. These would have been super easy to print out too. I invited 15 people and about 11 were able to make it and that was perfect!
Party Decor
I got balloons, plates napkins, cups, cutlery, and the decorations all at Dollar Tree. I picked the unicorn theme for her party since there wasn't another girlie birthday option.
One of the things I did that I thought was super cute was a photo wall of Bella over the 16 years of her life, one for each year. I shared photos from when she was a puppy, a teenager, from special trips and ones I just loved in general. I had this great idea the night before her party but thankfully a local drugstore has 1 hour photo printing. It was less than $8.00 for the photos I printed.
If you were doing this for a one year old I would try and take a pic every week you have them. That's another thing that I realized. I had 2 pictures from when Bella was a puppy. Take tons of pictures of your dog especially when they are tiny, that phase is so fast because before you know it your all black puppy is an almost all white 16 year old.
Food
Since the party was in the afternoon I decided just to serve snacks. I got a couple of chips and dip, a veggie tray and some drinks. For desert our friend, Vicki, made some delicious cupcakes. Vicki also got the cutest toppers for them. For Bella I had cookies for my fiends to give her and she got a pupcake from a local dog bakery.
How cute is Bella's pupcake?
Games
I had couple of games to play and prizes to win.
One game was guess the number of cookies in the cookie jar. I baked cookies in all kinds of sizes to make it harder and then who ever was closest got a prize.
The second game was pin the horn on the unicorn. I got this at dollar tree.
The thing that was the most fun that we did was go around the room and all talk about our dogs. Since everyone didn't know each other this was a good way for everyone to connect. Everyone shared pictures and stories about their dogs, it was pretty sweet.
Party Favors
I made cookies for all of our friends who had dogs and got stickers made of Bella's face from the invite! I got the stickers from A Custom Shop. I talked to a friend from instagram, Tulip's mom, and she said she did this for Tulips birthday and I loved the idea so I did it too! I did order the wrong size. I mean to order 2" and I got 3" but lots of friends still left with her big 3" head HAHA
If you got a close group of dog friends I think every one should get them done with their dogs face and then share them to decorate water bottles. HOW CUTE WOULD THAT BE??? If you make any of your dog you can send one to me too! I would love to put it on my water bottle.
Presents
When I sent out the invites I didn't say anything about gifts but many friends reached out when RSVPing and asked if they could get Bella some of her favorite treats or a toy. The old me would have said no she's got everything but I decided to let my friends get her gifts if they wanted to. She got tons of her favorite fish sticks, Real Meat Treats, Honest Kitchen treats, a couple toys, a super fun treat ball that is perfect for her at this stage of life and one friend even brought her a cheese burger! That was obviously a big hit!
I wish I had taken more pictures at the party but we were all having a good time it just slipped my mind. Nearly everyone from the party texted me after saying how fun it was and how nice everyone was. Dog people are the best people if you ask me.
Many thanks to my dear friends who came and spoiled Bella on her special day and to every one who reached out over email, text or our socials to wish Bella a Happy Birthday. Your sweet wishes for Bella will stay in my hear forever.
My last thought is don't wait till your dogs is 16 to have a party. If you want to have a party you can always make it an unbirthday party. Like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland says "You only have one birthday each year, but you have 364 unbirthdays." So pick an unbirthday day and have a party. Enjoy your life. Love your dog. Have as much as possible. You won't regret any of it.
Here's some random fun photos from the party!
