Puppy Party. For my daughter's 7th birthday party we had a puppy party. First our invitations had dogs on them and inside we stuck doggie stickers. On the invitation we asked our guests to bring their favorite stuffed animal pooch to the party. We started the party off with a coloring book of dogs that I made by taking coloring pages off of the internet. We used a hole puncher and bound them together with pretty red ribbon. We also made a puppy face craft out of a triangle-shaped piece of colored construction paper and drew eyes, nose, etc. Once all the guests had arrived, I had pre-made sugar cookies in the shape of Scooby Doo. I gave each child a plastic knife, brown frosting and they frosted the cookie. Then they decorated it with eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose, etc to look just like scooby. (they are kits sold in craft stores such as ACMoore or Michaels). Then we played a game where I divided the children into two groups and used brightly colored bases from a baseball game set. I gave the children a tablespoon and a big bone and told them they had to walk with the bone on the spoon, touch the base and then back to the next player waiting in line. If they dropped the bone, they had to start over. They LOVED this! Then we served hotdogs, chips & fresh fruit.  We cooked the hotdogs in an old fashioned hot dog machine with an umbrella on top (my husband's passion is old machines). Then we made a picture frame out of popsicle sticks. While waiting for them to dry, the children had fun with a Dalmation Pinata we had filled with lots of treats. Then we had sugar cookies cut out in the shape of dog bones-they looked like real bones! And instead of a cake we had cupcakes and I made tiny chocolate (dark and light brown) bones and put them on top of the cupcakes. We also gave the kids fresh popped popcorn in an old fashioned popcorn machine.. again, it is part of my husband's collection and we filled red white & blue popcorn bags with the popcorn. They went crazy for the popcorn. You can find the old fashioned bags in restaurant supply stores.  Then it was back to the frames and the children had fun decorating their picture frames with foam shaped cut-outs of dogs and bones and such. The finale is a visit from a worker at a local pet rescue group with a puppy (or a dog) to talk to the children about respecting pets and dogs and the correct way to take care of a dog. 7 is a great age and they love to learn new things about animals. I really wanted to give them something educational.   When all of the children left we gave them home-made chocolate lollipops in the shape of a dalmation, again we made them in white/black/brown/light brown chocolate decorated pretty with ribbon on the stick. And instead of a goodie bag, we gave them a doggie bag. We took brown paper bags and colored paw prints on the outside and wrote the child's name.. For example: Mary's Doggie Bag ! We filled it with lots of fun things to color with since they enjoyed the crafts so much, erasers, scented highlighters, colored pencils, crayons, a water filled bouncy ball, a plastic dog and a coloring book we got from our vet that was all about how to take care of a pet dog. They went home with a fist full of stuff from the party and very, very happy. One mom even asked me if I was an event planner !