How to Host a Cheap Build-a-Bear Party

Many kids want parties at Build-A-Bear or stores similar, and even if you go in as a group and get a special rate it still costs more than you ever imagined you wuld spend on a child's birthday. You can have your own build a bear party right at your house for a quarter of the cost. It is not the exact same thing but with a little fun and imagination the kids still can enjoy themselves.

The first step was invitations. We found some cute bear clip art on the computer and printed out homemade invitations, they were more like a full page size flyer. At first we planned to mail them out but my dollar store box of envelopes was empty and I had no stamps. So to save money on envelopes and stamps and since we see all the children invited every day we simply printed the invites, folded them and sealed with a bear sticker and handed them out to each child! There was one child from out of town and we emailed the invite over to them and put a return receipt on the email to show it was read.

The next step is to find some cheap bears or stuffed animals, for my child's party we checked out several dollar stores, they had plenty of stuffed animals but they were bigger in size, 12" or more and most of the clothes the dollar store sold were for Barbie doll size, so the match would never have worked. I found this website and bought two boxes of the bears shown at $21 each box, which contained 12 bears that were about 7" tall and a decent quality and size, each bear came wrapped in its own plastic bag, so I also ordered this from the same website, since you would not actually get to stuff a heart inside the bear this was what I gave as the heart and each child had a sheet of paper to paint the birth certificate themselves onto with their heart. Once the bears came in and I saw the size I went back to the dollar store and bought different Barbie/Play Doll outfits that they had, if your dollar store does not have clothes you could check out clearance at local toy stores or even Wal-Mart for doll clothes, we had 11 kids coming so I bought 11 doll tops for the bears, at the dollar store I also found some cute silicone style baking cups, they were cupcake sized and in different colors, they had a pack of 4 for $1 so I bought 3 packages, the cups worked as a basket for the bear to sit in, it was a little small but the kids don't notice things like that!

When guest arrived the party started with story hour, I read to the kids a quick story based on the life of a bear that I checked out free from the library, they were then allowed to pick out a bear and a top and put together their bear and create a birth certificate, while they did that we watched a DVD of "The Country Bears" which I also checked out free from the library .

While the kids were busy I put out cheap child friendly foods. We had everything served buffet style and there was more than enough for parents too, we had chicken nuggets, hot dogs and macaroni & cheese and tossed salad (with many veggies straight from my garden, further decreasing the party costs!) and I used a plastic but fancy looking punch bowl also bought at the dollar store to serve punch in.

When time to sing happy birthday came around, rather than spending $30 on a cake from the bakery or attempting to decorate one myself I opted for cupcakes, we made 2 dozen cupcakes and I spread them out on the table to spell the number 6 for my child's birthday. We also bought a big tub of ice cream and some cheap bowls (again from the dollar store) to serve ice cream for those who did not want cupcakes, in between the cupcakes I put out bowls with gummi bears, teddy graham bears, sprinkles and various fixings (again all bought from the dollar store) to make your own sundaes.

By the end of the party the kids and parents were full and happy and the best part was no worrying about putting together goodie bags since the kids made their own party favor!