Bluey Party 101: Everything You Need for a Heeler-ific Day
Marketing & Graphic Design Manager | Creativity Queen | Parties, Animals & Nature Lover
Chantel is a Brisbane-based marketing and graphic designer who thinks through visualisations and plans through ipad sketchs. You will find her planning themed parties, renovating houses and caravans, as well as upcycling furniture.
Wow, it’s hard to believe it has been a year since I threw my daughter, Ruby, a “Wild One” party!
Despite all the work that went into planning, setting up, and the normal stress of hosting a party, I found myself crazy enough to start planning another DIY bash for her 2nd birthday. Let’s throw a party!
Choosing the Theme
Choosing the theme for this year was pretty easy after hearing the constant request for “Bluey!” anytime the TV was within eyeball distance. And who can resist a boogie to the Bluey theme song?
Doing a Bluey theme is pretty easy when there are so many party items to choose from: Bluey Party Supplies. I wanted to put a girly twist on the usual Bluey colours, so I started with a Pinterest board to gather inspiration and ideas.
Piecing together your own moodboard can be done on Pinterest or Canva. I initially added inspiration pics to a Pinterest board before collating a few of my favourite ideas into Canva mood boards, as shown below:
Creating a Mood board
It’s totally up to you what you want to put on your mood board, but some examples of how you could break them up into more specific boards/lists are:
- Food Inspo
- Party Games
- Decorations
- Costumes/Outfits
- Party Bags/Favours
I also pieced together a party invite in Canva at the same time, using the colour palette and elements I loved from the mood board.
DIY Backdrops and Decorations
To recreate the seemingly professional-looking photo backdrops of Pinterest, I scoured our landscaping scrap pile for some plywood, and shaped this into an arch before painting it with some pastel pink paint I had left over from Ruby’s cubby house.
My vision was to have balloons flowing down the side, which is thankfully easy with pre-made kits: Balloon Garlands and Arches. Simply choose a colour/theme balloon arch or garland, and everything you need is in the box. Kits include the perfect number of balloons, balloon tape, balloon stickers, and depending on the design, additional paper streamers, stick-on decals, or faux leaves. Choose an arch that best ties in with your colour scheme or general theme.
You could even go all-out and print large characters on paper, laminate them, or glue them onto a solid backing to have them standing up, complementing your photo wall. For this party, I decided to keep it a bit more simple.
Here’s a tip: blow up all the balloons the night BEFORE the party, put together the garland and store in a safe place e.g a room where no kids can play with (or pop!) them. Having the balloons ready to hang the next day will take a whole lot of stress off your back, saving time for the actual set up process.
Party Bags
I googled “Bluey party bags” and got some inspo from Etsy sellers who offer pre-made themed party bags. To save money, I created my own designs on Canva, printed these out, and attached the items to the paper, eg. balloon for keepy uppy game, granny glasses, and sticky gecko. I also included Bluey stickers, and a healthy chocolate.
Tableware and Styling
With licensed Bluey tableware, decorating your table can be as easy as arranging a tablecloth, plates, napkins, scene setters, and adorable table decorating kits: Bluey Party Supplies. I chose to couple some licensed tableware with plain coloured items: Shop by Colour, to match my moodboard colour scheme.
Food & Games
For food, I kept it simple and toddler friendly. Things like fairy bread, tofu scramble sandwiches, sliced up veges and dips. If you had a flare for baking, you could make themed snacks like Bluey-shaped cookies or cupcakes with blue frosting.
As for games, we had a table full of Bluey colouring in paper, lots of playdough, a cubby house full of cafe items, a remote control car and a Bluey background with uber cute paper photo props.
Between the activities and the food, there were plenty of things to occupy energetic toddlers for a few hours - and parents! If you want ideas on Bluey themed games, there is a large page of resources on the Bluey TV website.
Finishing Touches
Working for a costume company, the numero uno party must-have for me is… costumes! I dressed as Chilli, my partner was Bandit, and of course Ruby had to be Bluey. We had a few other kids and adults join in the costume fun, although this wasn’t required for entry to the party - lucky for some.
You can find all our Bluey costumes, party supplies and decorations here.
Happy party planning!
