Beanie Boo Adoption Birthday Party

This Saturday, we celebrated Gracie’s 8th birthday with a group of her friends at our house. In January, she started talking about wanting a Beanie Boo birthday party. Not knowing what kind of party that might be, I headed to the oracle of all party planners… Pinterest. This is the best resource that I found in my searches. I used all of her printables for our party and her bingo game!

And, lo! There was such a thing as a Beanie Boo party! It was a Beanie Boo adoption party and it looked like everything that makes Gracie’s heart glow – Beanie Boos, arts and crafts, beads and jewels. I mean, could life get any better for an 8 year old girl? The answer is NO.

Our party consisted of several different activities that we did in order.

1. A Beanie Boo white elephant exchange.
2. Making name collars
3. Making party hats
4. Decorating leashes
5. Decorating houses
6. Filling out adoption “paperwork”
7. Beanie Boo Bingo

BEANIE BOO WHITE ELEPHANT EXCHANGE – We bought one Beanie Boo for every girl to keep. I waited until I had one of those really great 20% off your entire purchase coupons from Michael’s, so it wasn’t that bad. We didn’t spend anymore than we would have spent on goody bags (which I can’t stand!). Then, we got a pack of gift bags from Michael’s for $8. When the girls were ready to start the game, they each selected a popsicle stick from my hand that had a number on it. Then, they picked their Beanie Boo gift bags by having a white elephant gift exchange. The main goal was not to end up with one they already had at home, which only happened with one girl, but she was able to trade with a friend, so we were all set.

MAKING PET COLLARS – I bought pipe cleaners and beads from the Dollar Tree for this. I also bought a bag of letter beads from Michael’s. The girls made collars with the beads that had their Beanie Boo’s names on it. I originally had elastic to make these out of, but after reading around online, I discovered the pipe cleaners are easier and sturdier, which works out better for us because we connected leashes to them.

MAKING PARTY HATS – At Michael’s (are you seeing a pattern here???), Gracie picked out several pages of scrapbook paper to make party hats for the Beanie Boos. We cut these in half and the girls picked what pattern they liked and rolled them into hats. We then cut the wide bottom of the hats so the points were smaller and didn’t look so much like dunce caps, ha! We used elastic to secure the hats under the Beanie Boo chins. I meant to also get little pom poms to glue to the top of the hats, but I forgot to get those. They turned out pretty cute anyway, though.

DECORATING LEASHES – The day before the party, Gracie and I made the leashes for the girls. I bought these keyrings in the jewelry making section of Michael’s and the ribbon in the $1 clearance bins. I unrolled the ribbon to leash-length and then connected they keychains and made the hand loop using my hot glue gun. It took about 15 minutes to make all of them. At the party, the girls used hot glue guns to glue jewels to decorate their leashes. They loved this part!

DECORATING PET HOUSES – I bought these online on Amazon for $6. They didn’t actually need to be decorated, but any chance to use sequins and stickers is a winner with 8 year old girls! I gave them glue and little cups of sequins, plus a page of stickers. We ended up using these boxes as their goody bags. By the end of the party, I had them put their Beanie Boos, leashes, hats, and prizes in the boxes to keep everything together. It worked great!

FILLING OUT ADOPTION “PAPERWORK” – There was an adoption certificate that came with the pet houses that we could have used, but they were pretty small and kind of flimsy. Instead, I found an adoption certificate for free on Pinterest and then sent them to Office Depot for printing on cardstock. The printing cost $2.50. The girls filled the adoption paperwork out and then put it in their pet houses for safe keeping.

BEANIE BOO BINGO – I found this while I was looking around Pinterest and it was great fun! Gracie picked out a few prizes at the Dollar Tree and we played several rounds of Bingo with the girls after they all finished their adoptions. This was our time filler before parents arrived for pick up. It was a lot of fun because they were so excited when they got a card with their new Beanie Boo on it.

One tip I would give if you are doing an arts and crafts party with kids at home is to take play breaks between activities or stages of the craft. After every activity above, the girls got to play outside or up in Gracie’s room for 10 minutes or so. This helped their attention span, but it also gave Chris and I time to clean up between rounds of projects. It was so helpful, actually, that we were entirely cleaned up by the end of the party! All we had to do was put the food away and we were done with party clean up!

We have done birthday parties both out at party locations and we have also done them home at our house. I actually prefer the ones in our house. If you stay on top of it, it doesn’t really mess your house up too much and I like the flexibility it gives us. Plus, it fits my last-minute-planning personality! 🙂

This was one of our favorite parties so far. Everyone had a good time – even Chris and me. It was the perfect way to celebrate our favorite 8 year old!