Throwing a Paw Patrol birthday party is a guaranteed way to make your kiddo’s birthday unforgettable. My son is obsessed with the whole gang – particularly Marshall (because he’s cool) and Rubble (because he has the coolest vehicles). So his 3rd birthday was themed around Paw Patrol.
I didn’t do as much DIY for this party as usual. There is such an abundance of Paw Patrol party merch at low prices, I didn’t need to! Even after purchasing several branded items, I stayed within my budget. But I’ll go over every single aspect of his party, from the invitations I designed to the amazing party favors all the kids loved. Hopefully, I can give you some ideas to steal!
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DIY Invitation Design
All my kids’ birthday invitations are custom-made by me thanks to my Photoshop background. I chose to include a recent photo of my son in this one. The whole gang is featured, but I put Marshall up front and center. The badge logo with a bone is incorporated in the headline of the invitation.
After completing the design, I ordered custom 5×7 flat cards from Mpix. If you like my design, I’ll happily customize it with your child’s photo and party details! Or you can check out all these fun Paw Patrol birthday invitations, from printables to the ready-to-ship kind.
Home Decorations
Color Scheme
The pups of Paw Patrol wear all the colors of the rainbow, so you can really choose any bright color scheme for your party. Blue, red, yellow, and white feature prominently in the show’s titles and logos. Since my son loves Marshall most, I did all the DIY decorating in red and yellow. Black and white would also work for Marshall since he’s a Dalmatian! And I have a printable black-and-white birthday banner that would coordinate perfectly with that look.
Balloons
I had a few mylar balloons floating around the house, and I was stoked to find some that featured Marshall instead of Chase. The exact ones I bought aren’t around anymore, but there are still plenty of adorable Paw Patrol balloon packs out there.
Streamers
With only a few family members coming to our home and not the usual 30-40 guests (the party was in April of 2020… so most were on Zoom), I chose not to hang dozens of streamers across the kitchen ceiling. It just didn’t feel worth the effort. Instead, I cut varying lengths of red, white, and yellow streamers to hang under balloons of the same color over the kitchen server. They looked pretty boring hanging loosely, so I twisted them up and taped the bottoms so they would stay put.
Ceiling Decorations
I 100% cheated and bought a pack of foil swirl ceiling decorations from Walmart. This pack isn’t available anymore, but there are some cute honeycomb balls with Chase, Marshall, and Rubble on them. The table cover was also official party merch.
Lookout Tower
I found this toy Lookout Tower secondhand on Facebook Marketplace for less than half the cost of a new one. Originally I had envisioned placing it on the kitchen table next to the cupcake stand – but I didn’t know how huge it was until I picked it up! So it became a living room decoration the kids could play with during the party. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can buy this version anywhere anymore.
Pup Food Pun & Drink Ideas
If you’ve seen my other birthday party posts, you’ll know I love a great themed food pun! It was all too easy to come up with dog-related food and drink ideas. This is what we served.
Hot Dog Bar (on a Roll!)
I mean, hot DOGS… on ROLLS… how could anything else be your main party food?! My husband grilled the franks and I set up a topping bar featuring ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, relish, bacon bits, and shredded cheese. For a fun twist, I created a “menu” poster pairing specific topping combos with each Paw Patrol pup. It challenged the kids to try toppings based on their favorite characters that they normally wouldn’t!
Ruff-les
We all love cheddar and sour cream Ruffles, and this pun was just too easy.
Pupcorn
White cheddar puffcorn is always such a big treat for me! It’s like I forget I can buy it any time I want. But for this party, “puff” became “pup”. The blue bowl came from Walmart and is no longer available. If you’re crafty, you can always apply your own vinyl stickers to plain colorful dog bowls.
Chew Sticks
Pretzel rods were tucked into a mason jar for easy grab-and-go finger food. Our kids love all types of pretzels!
Fruit Kibble
Instead of a fruit tray, we made “kibble” by mixing the kids’ favorite fruits into a bowl. I included cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, and grapes!
Pawtato Salad
This one was for the adults, as all the kids would rather starve than touch their tongues to potato salad.
Wipe Your Paws
Napkins don’t always get their own food card, but I couldn’t resist this time. After all, small children really are like animals when they eat.
Pooch Punch
There was absolutely nothing fancy about this drink – it’s just red Hawaiian Punch mixed with Sprite. But it matches Marshall’s signature color, so that’s all I needed!
Simple Indoor Party Activities
Photo Backdrop & Props
Even though we didn’t have a lot of guests attending in person, I bought this Paw Patrol backdrop with photo props weeks in advance, and I didn’t want to waste it! The kids all took turns holding up character faces and other props for a mini photo shoot.
I admittedly had some fun with it, too. Can you see my real eye?
Marshall Pinata
I’m sure some parents out there find the new pull-string pinata style off-putting or wussy, but when you need to do an indoor pinata, strings are a lifesaver! Besides, in our experience, even the pull-string ones can be whacked with a sturdy pole and cracked open. So the strings just give you an extra option.
My husband is tall, so he just held the Marshall pinata up in the air while the three kids at the party pulled the strings until the candy fell out.
Homemade Paw Patrol Pupcakes
This is the only birthday party I’ve ever thrown where I only made cupcakes without any kind of “main” cake. (This ended up being a wise choice since we ended up with very, very few guests actually *at* our house.) My son wanted chocolate cupcakes, and I found cute white liners with black paw prints for them. Vanilla would’ve looked better in them, but I always make the flavor they want. I frosted them in six different colors for each of the main pups.
- Blue for Chase
- Red for Marshall
- Pink for Skye
- Yellow for Rubble
- Green for Rocky
- Orange for Zuma
The frosting was made from the Wilton buttercream recipe, and I used their extra-large coupler with the 1M star tip to pipe it.
I found this image of those six pups with name banners against their unique badges. Since I didn’t have my big Cricut yet to do detailed cuts, I just printed them on cardstock and cut an oval around each one. Then I taped long toothpicks to the back and stuck them into their matching cupcake colors. The cupcake stand came from Amazon, and I’ve used it many times since!
Off the Leash Party Favors
Favor Boxes & Character Masks
I was SO happy when I found these Paw Patrol favor boxes because they weren’t shaped awkwardly and were big enough to hold lots of goodies! These are also discontinued, but you can get this shape in multiple colors, most of which match the pups’ signature hues.
Each box had a character mask attached to it based on that child’s favorite pup. For the kids who couldn’t be present in person for this party, I delivered their party favor boxes with masks to their front porches.
Small Toys & Activities
I found a great deal at Party City on a Paw Patrol-branded favor pack with a maze, coloring sheets with crayons, stickers, stamps, and small toys.
“Doggie” Treat Bags
Since I had plenty of space in the favor boxes, there was no way I wasn’t going to make doggy bags of treats! I filled zippered snack bags with Scooby snack cookies and stapled these “doggie bag” tags I’d printed on glossy photo paper. There was space for me to write each child’s name on the tags.
DIY Marshall & Rubble Hats
Listen, I went wild on the party favors before I knew we weren’t going to be able to have all of our friends and family over as usual. That’s why I made it a point to drive to all their houses and drop these things off, haha!
The red fire hats and yellow construction helmets came from Amazon. I got the printable hat stickers here and they printed perfectly on inkjet vinyl sticker paper. Without a print-then-cut Cricut in my possession yet, I had to cut around each badge by hand, and then stick them to the fronts of the hats.
Marshall’s ears were all done by hand. I cut two long ear shapes from one sheet of letter-sized white cardstock for each red hat I had, then colored on Dalmatian spots. I used double-sided tape to attach them just inside the brims of the hats.
That’s it! My son had a great time, and at the age of 3, he really didn’t notice that this party differed from the others he’s had. He ate junk food, opened presents, and ran around playing with his sister and the one cousin in our “bubble” at the time. Hopefully his Paw Patrol birthday party has given you some inspiration for the decorations and party favors at your child’s big day!
You Might Want to Read…
- Toy Rotation: the thing you’ll need to implement after your child opens far too many birthday presents!
