When I recently asked W what kind of birthday party he wanted this year, he was very specific and very clear: a black dragon party with deep red, and not Toothless. I didn’t think this would be too difficult, but as it turns out, many dragon party items are more geared towards slaying dragons rather than appreciating them. And as anything related to How to Train Your Dragon was not acceptable, I had to get a bit creative. I think it turned out really well in the end, and W was very happy with how everything turned out.
Dragon Den Decor
After I had checked all of my favorite party suppliers and even done some blind searches on the internet, I realized I did not have much hope of finding exactly what I was looking for. Not wanting to give up on his first party idea, I wanted to try some searches on Amazon. I ended up finding several versions of this set of party decorations. I was really unsure if this was going to be what I needed, but the price was great and it was all made up of black dragons that were not being slayed. I also ordered some black and white plastic tablecloths on clearance at Oriental Trading along with some general party supplies that matched. The party set from Amazon turned out to be amazing! It did require some assembly for both the swirly hangers and the larger cake sign, but it was super easy and worked out great. I had enough items to decorate the entire party area and even one extra swirly hanger for the front door! The Birthday banner was really great quality and the shields had a small curve to them that made them appear 3D. The decorations were a hit with everyone and took very little work on my part for as much of an impact as they made!
What do Dragons Do For Birthdays?
Once W had told me what he wanted for a theme, we talked about what we should do at his party. His birthday is in July so we first thought about making it a pool party, then we decided there should be a dragon craft. A few days later, he also proposed the idea of having a dragon egg hunt. I thought this all sounded amazing and got right to work. The pool party is easy enough to arrange as we have access to a pool at a relative’s house. The craft proved quite a lot more difficult. I had found a few different options, but they all were very expensive for what our budget was. I even thought I had found a good option a few different times and got both of our hopes up, only for the price to be way more than I thought it would be. In the end, I found some balsam wood paintable dragons at Michaels. These were a huge hit! I even put out some other paint colors so W could paint his black! The price was great as it included paint and a brush for each kiddo. I just added some extra paint, paper plates for mixing, paper towels, and a few glasses of water for cleaning brushes. We had this all set up on a sperate table so once they were done painting, the dragons could dry out of the way. For the dragon egg hunt, I found some awesome small dragons and some jumbo crystal Easter eggs on clearance. I put one dragon in each egg with some of W’s favorite candies. We then hid them as with a classic egg hunt, only they were only allowed to get one egg each, and they couldn’t look at what was in each egg until all the kiddos had collected their eggs and returned to the beginning. This was a really fun activity and the kiddos had a blast finding the eggs and finding out what dragon they got. As a side note, to make swimming more dragon-y, we found cute little dragon rubber duckies we put in the pool, which was super adorable!
What Can We Cook With Fire?
I couldn’t think of any dragon related food that W likes, but then I had a thought, what about “flame grilled” (Read: Grilled) hot dogs? If we cooked them on the grill and let them get a bit blistered and browned, they could look like they were cooked by a dragon’s breath! I wanted to keep the rest of the food super simple as it was likely going to be a really hot day and no one wants to eat a lot on a hot day. We ended up with hot dogs, buns, toppings, cut apples, grapes, and chips. We also put out bowls of the candy we had in the dragon eggs, as well as a cooler of sodas and waters available throughout the day. For dessert W wanted chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting. I used black cupcake liners for the cakes and then used a premade strawberry frosting as I have struggled to find a good from-scratch recipe in the past. I used a large multi point star to pipe a messy swirl on each cupcake and then airbrushed each one with first orange around the bottom and then red on the top 2/3s with the very top being the darkest red. This gave the cupcakes the look of flames licking up them which turned out amazing once we put the dragon pics in them. These came with the decoration set and they were amazing! I was worried the glitter would be loose and possibly fall off on the cupcakes, but it was the type of paper where the glitter is engrained in the paper and not attached to it. W thought they looked amazing and I agreed!
Maximum Dragon Appreciation
For as rough as the research part of this party was, it turned out amazingly! We all had a blast and the dragon love was evident everywhere! Having a few activities to break up the day of swimming also helped to keep the kiddos happy and busy and gave the adults plenty of time to socialize together. W loved that we were able to find lots of black and red dragon related items and that everyone got to do some of his favorite things. I cannot say enough how much I appreciated the decoration set to make things easy and really impactful, and the cupcakes looked awesome with the toppers from it! Do you have a dragon lover in your family who would like a party like this? Let me know in the comments below!
