Often, people don’t truly know their dog’s actual birthday. Whether you rescue or adopt, your pet is most likely your fur baby regardless of where he/she came from. Like you, Joshua John Russel (JJR) and I adore our pets and had to throw a dog party. Completely normal. A while back a friend of mine asked me to make a “gotcha day” banner for her rescue. When I asked her what it meant, she told me it was the celebration of the day she adopted him into her life. I mean, come on… that’s adorable.
Gotcha Day was a hit!
Thanks to my friend and her pup this idea formed into an entire party. Bluprint asked for JJR and I to come up with our own themes for the celebrations we hosted together on our show Bring the Party for mybluprint.com. Gotcha Day was a huge hit and out of the 25 something parties we submitted, we were able to get the green light on this one. You can see the entire episode on mybluprint.com, you won’t be sad that you did! Here are some commentary that you didn’t see in the show and more on the details.
A Doggone great time
I my class on mybluprint.com I show how to create this fire hydrant and on the show we talk through this fun bean bag toss game using dog bowls.
Huge shout out to Cricut and the Maker! I was able to make all of the vinyl for these signs featured including the sauce bottles that JJR talks about on the episode. I love how the dog in the photo on the left is taking it seriously. 
These “Doggie Bags” are one of my easiest and highest impact detail. You can use your printer to run brown paper bags through or even use your Cricut with their pen system like I did below.
JJR and I love when we see how our two worlds combined all throughout the season. Each event had a unique feel about it with his culinary and my crafting designs. 
You can see that one of us enjoys the other’s talents a little more. You can see this delicious and amazing cake come together on Man About Cake with Joshua John Russel.
These over sized tennis balls were actually last minute additions. When I was in Denver for this shoot I was going over all of the design plans and something was missing. I needed to tie in the tennis ball center of the pinwheels to something else in the party. I was unable to find oversized tennis balls within our budget. I introduce to you- the Chinese paper lanterns that the design team was able to carry out my designs on! 
The cooler featured on the show is amazing! I found them in 2018 and asked if they wanted to personally partner with me in the future. Being able to use the super versatile Revo Coolers made our drinks cold and look chic at the same time.
Fun fact- this is my actual cousin pictured below. She lives in Denver with her fiance and their dog Yogi! The plastic pools you see are filled with plastic balls and then we hid dog treats in them. You can see how much JJR liked them too on the show. 
My favorite thing about Bluprint is that they not only let me be me but they want me to be ME! I asked the producer if I could surprise JJR by wearing a hotdog costume to the Dog party… he was beyond thrilled. When you watch this episode and see JJR’s reaction, it is 100 percent authentic! There is a clip somewhere of me just digging into a hotdog while dressed like one yelling “it’s sooooo good!” It’s JJR’s and I’s favorite part. 
This guy has become one of my closest friends and this episode was our very first shoot together. I love watching him on Man About Cake and seeing his passion and personality. Nothing was rehearsed and everything is real on our show which makes it even more fun. You never know what is going to happen! So glad to have met him and be part of Bluprint.
