Abigail's Adopt a Beanie Boo birthday party: The Set Up

Originally Abigail was planning on having another My little Pony birthday party this year and then we saw a picture on Pinterest that showed an Adopt a puppy party using Beanie Boo stuffed animals. She fell in love and wanted to do an Adopt a Beanie Boo party using different kinds of animals. 

I thought that sounded like a lot of fun but the problem would be the budget. 

We would want to buy a stuffie for each guest to adopt but with their price just the cost of the stuffed animals would use up all of the party budget (we do $100 for birthdays, $50 for the party and $50 for gifts). We decided based on the average price of the Beanie Boo's how many friends she could invite and then brainstormed what activities she would want to do. 

And we lucked out. 

We wanted boxes to make into carriers for them and I just happened to have the exact amount we needed in a box in the storage room. I always make boxed cake mix cakes/ cupcakes so that would only be a few dollars for that and ice cream. We were set. 

We had her party at Doug's parents house just like we did with Maddy. 

I printed out a bunch of signs for the stations and then borrowed frames and tablecloths from his mom to make it look nice. 

This was the party room when I was finished decorating. 

To make the signs, I just used pictures of actual Beanie Boo's and then wrote whatever I wanted around it (in Word) then printed them out. 

Our first station was the Adopt a Beanie Boo station where the kids would pick out their animal and fill out the adoption form.

I found these adoption certificates on detailorienteddiva 

for free and printed them out. I was so happy to find them because most of the adoption certificates I came across were dog or cat specific. This was the only one I found that didn't specify a gender or animal and was still really cute. 

 

The animals all ready to be adopted!

The second station was the make your pet collar station. 

I was planning on having the kids use ribbons from my vast collection of random ribbons to make a collar but Abi really wanted to make loom band collars and then let them each pick out the charm to finish them off. I thought that was sweet of her because she used her own bands and charms. We didn't buy any new ones. 

The next station was to design your pet carrier. 

We laid out a bunch of markers, some stickers, and then they could choose their box and decorate it however they wanted to.

Next came the Visit the Vet station where their new pet could get an examination and a clean bill of health before going home with them. 

This was where I ended up going over budget a teeny bit. We were going to borrow my mom's doctor kit because we didn't have one. But... I totally forgot to get it from her so we decided to run to Walmart and see what they had. This one was cute and simple and only $10. So, 10 over budget but a cute toy we will have for a long time.

I fell in love with the Veterinarian's Checklist I saw on a post about a Beanie Boo party on Paige's Party Ideas here but she didn't have printables. So I used that as inspiration and made my own. 

We also set up the table with coloring pages as an activity while waiting for all the kids to arrive (just like we did at Madeline's party).

The last touch was adding balloons to the mailbox so that people would know it was the right house. 

And now we are ready for the party!