For my son’s 8th, he chose a dragon theme. However, he also requested that we serve tacos that day. So naturally, to tie it all together, we turned it into a “Dragon Loves Tacos” theme, after the beloved storybook!
Since he wanted to invite his whole class, we held the party at a local park instead of our home. It’s such an expansive area, but we did our best to tie the theme together with the colors while creating separate “spaces” for the various activities.
To establish the theme right off the bat, it started with the party invitation. I created a custom paperless post invitation that leveraged the style and characters from the storybook. I didn’t love the ones I was seeing available, so I created my own.
When guests arrived, the focal point of the party was the gazebo area, so we made sure to tie it together with a custom banner that matched the invitation.
We also had some themed treats displayed near where guests would first “enter” into the party area. With my son’s food allergies (gluten and dairy), it’s tougher to find treats that are safe that can be customized. Thanks to a local moms group on Facebook, we found a local lady who was able to custom make some dragons love tacos themed gluten- AND dairy-free cookies for us. The pure artistry was truly amazing. And on top of that they were delicious!
We also got a fondant cake topper for our allergy-free cake. I’ve found that cake toppers are the easiest way to decorate gluten- and dairy-free cakes, as you get a bit limited with the safe icings. We commissioned this custom cake topper from a vendor on Etsy. To be honest, I didn’t love this as there was a miscommunication and it completely was a different design from what I ordered than what was shown on the listing. But knowing she was a small business and had put in the work, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it so I just went with it.
For party favors, since I couldn’t find any design I really liked, I ended up making my own. I ordered these favor boxes from Amazon and created these labels for them, customized with each kid’s name.
Pro tip for elementary school parties: the names are KEY! Last year, I made the mistake of not having names on the favor bags. We had let some sibling party crashers stay, but they somehow assumed they could take favors as well, and we almost didn’t have enough for the kids who were actually invited (luckily I had made a few extras).
Inside the boxes, to tie to the theme, I included these dragon fidget popper keychains, these temporary tattoos, these dinosaur slingshot toys (they can pass for dragons, right?!) and these friendship bracelets that sort of reminded me of dragon scales (I know it’s a stretch but I wanted to include lots of non-food treats to be sensitive to food allergies!).
When it came to the activities, you can never go wrong with a bounce house to entertain a bunch of young kids. However, I always like having more of a hands-on arts and crafts type of activity.
I was initially looking at crafts such as having each kid make their own dragon egg, but every version I looked at was a bit too involved, as I wanted the kids to be able to do the activity somewhat independently. I finally came across these dragon egg dig-it-up toys.
The highlight and surprise of the afternoon was…a reptile handler! For other themed parties, I’ve had a “character” come but that didn’t seem practical in this case (and 8-year-olds probably wouldn’t have been amused by a guy in a dragon costume). So instead, I thought it’d be fun to bring in the closest thing to a real dragon…a bearded one! I have to say, it brought me so much joy to see not only all the kids but also the adults so mesmerized!
We capped the party off with singing happy birthday and digging into the yummy cake.
There you have it! Our dragons turned Dragons Loves Tacos themed 8th birthday for my special boy. That smile and pure gleeful joy of feeling loved and celebrated is always so worth it.
That Celebration Life 