Barbie Party for the Win!

When my Children and Youth Services Coordinator nervously approached me with the idea of having a Barbie Party for National Barbie Day 2024, to her and my own surprise, I immediately thought it was a fabulous idea!! Despite the fact that I am not a girly-girl and don't remember playing with Barbies as a child, I knew how beloved Barbie is and thought it would be a different type of program that we typically do. Since 2017, we have annually participated in International Harry Potter Book Day and we hold a Polar Express Night, but both of those are toward the end of the year and we were looking for an event in March.

When the idea was pitched to me, she expected it to be about 30 children and the event would be structured where all of the kids did the same thing at the same time. We would paint nails, decorate cupcakes, play Barbie Bingo, and it be a nice little party. Within the first few hours of our Facebook post, we had 44 pre-registered and we knew we would have to copy the same come-and-go format as our Harry Potter and Polar Express events.

By the time it was all said and done, we had over 100 pre-register and over 160 in attendance. While 160 kiddos might not sound like a lot for some libraries, for our rural community, it was AMAZING!!!

So how can you have your very own Barbie Party? We had nine stations that included nail painting, fishing for a Barbie outfit, coloring station, bingo, bracelet making, hair boutique, photo booths with life size Barbie boxes in 3 sizes, cupcake decorating, and Barbie Walk of Fame. The event was come and go over 2 hours and had some passive stations that didn't require anyone to oversee (coloring, walk of fame, and hair boutique) and there were also stations that took several employees and volunteers to run. This was our first event that took place in only the Children's Wing and while we learned a lot, it was so amazing that we plan to add it to our annual calendar!!!

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