Cute Dog Bone Cake Prop for Dog’s Birthday

As someone who (intentionally) doesn’t have children, it can be difficult to see all the cute things mothers do for their children’s 1st birthdays. I figured since I’ll never get the chance to throw an adorable birthday bash for my little ones, I could still get crafty and do a cute photo shoot with my pup 🙂

We rescued Dakota from the animal shelter a little over 2 years ago and she is the sweetest thing! (Scroll down to the bottom for pics of her!) We only have an estimate of her age, but assigned her a birthday – July 4th – and decided we’d celebrate for fun. (In all my years of dog ownership, I’ve never before celebrated a fur baby’s birthday so this is new to me!)

Here’s the faux dog cake I created for her big day:

How to Create a Faux Dog Cake:

Supplies:

2 round paper mache boxes (1 larger than the other for stacking)

cake frosting

cake sprinkles

dog treats

twine

2 small wooden dowels

scrapbook paper

letter stickers

hot glue gun

scissors

ruler

pen

hole punch

Steps:

First, remove the lids from your paper mache boxes and flip them upside down.

Use a pen to mark 2 places where you can create holes to hold up your mini pennant banner. Cut small holes so that the banner will be held tightly in place. Push the dowels in at an angle. Once that’s done, you can remove the dowels and set aside.

Place the smaller box on top of the larger box and trace a line around it. Then, add hot glue to your line and glue the boxes together.

Now, you can put the banner dowels back into place. Cut a piece of twine that’s long enough to run between the dowels (with some slack) and tie 2 knots.

Based on the length of your twine, determine the size of the pennants for your banner and use a ruler to draw triangles onto your scrapbook paper. Cut out the triangles.

Use a hole punch to punch 2 holes in each triangle for the twine to run through.

Use sticker letters to add your dog’s name to the pennant banner. Isn’t this so much fun?

Overlap your triangles and string them on the twine, tying a knot to each wooden dowel.

You may want to look up dog friendly recipes for the frosting. I used canned cake frosting from Safeway (only for looks – I didn’t give any to Dakota!). To make it go father, I put the frosting in the mixer to fluff it up.

Whatever method you choose, use a spatula or knife to coat the “cake” with icing. I didn’t go all the way around since the back wouldn’t show in pictures.

Add some small or medium dog treat biscuits along the edges and a large one on top. I also added sprinkles.

We don’t give Dakota any “people food” so aside from letting her sniff the cake and “steal” some of the dog biscuits, she didn’t actually get to enjoy it. You can probably look up recipes for dog-friendly frosting so you can let your pup lick his or her cake. Might win you dog mom of the year! 😉