The Doc Is In: Ellie's Doc McStuffins 3rd Birthday Party

Note:

I apologize for the blurry pictures; please see disclaimer in righthand sidebar.

To see clear photos of this party, please check them out on my Shutterfly share site here.

Yesterday I told you all about the fun we had at Ellie's third birthday party, but now I'd like to share the party details with you! As usual, I spent a lot of time scouring the internet (I'm looking at you, Pinterest) for inspiration, and so I'd like to pay it forward, of sorts, and share all the Doc touches we had at Ellie's shindig.

Last year I was excited to plan Ellie's Sesame Street party because I knew that she would actually be excited about all the details, because she was a major Sesame Street fan. Well, if I thought that was fun, this year was exceptionally more so. Ellie is nothing sort of McStuffins-obsessed, and she got so excited about every piece of the party she saw as I put it all together. That just made it so much more fun for me!

Let's take a look!

The Invitation

I searched both Etsy and Pinterest for just the right invitation, but ultimately ended up putting something together myself.

It's time for your check-up!

The fonts used are Hypatia Sans Pro Black (used for "Doc Ellie"), DK Crayon Crumble, and KBAStitchInTime ("Ellie is __ Years Old"), all available for free download online. I designed the invitations myself in Power Point and had them printed through Vistaprint.

Attire

Ellie was outfitted in full Doc gear, complete with Doc T-Shirt, pink skirt and polka dot leggings (all parts of her normal wardrobe). She wore a Doc jacket and stethoscope from a set my mom found at Walgreens, and sparkly Doc sneakers we found at JC Penny. I added a flower to a purple sparkly headband we found at Joann Fabrics, and naturally she rocked her usual pigtails. She really looked the part!

Doc Ellie and Doc McStuffins

As for the rest of us, we considered dressing in costume because Ellie often assigns us characters when she is pretending to be Doc (I'm always Hallie, and Eric is always Stuffy, and E.J. fluctuates). But, we decided to go super subtle and instead, dressed to mimic the rest of the McStuffins family. We didn't expect anyone to get it (we watch more Doc than probably is healthy, and I would never have picked up on this if I saw someone else do it), but it was fun nonetheless!

The W. and McStuffins families!

Decor

Decor is always my favorite part of party-planning! The primary colors used were purple, pink and aqua, and we built up from there:

"Reception"/ The Guestbook:

When our guests first arrived at the party pavilion, they entered "Reception," where they were instructed to sign in. We purchased a "Big Book of Boo-Boos" from Barnes & Noble, which was a lot of fun because it contains a large number of coloring pages, each of which features a diagnosis from the show with instructions for a fun activity to fill the page. We put out a bucket of crayons and a sign instructing guests to choose a diagnosis and leave their mark. Our guests had a lot of fun with it and the result is really something special! The reception table also featured a photo of Ellie with Doc McStuffins during our Disney World trip in January.

Welcome to the party!

The guestbook, photo and crayons at reception

Please sign in!

One of our guests signing the Big Book of Boo-Boos

Dining tables:

The dining tables were each covered with a purple tablecloth and featured a centerpiece inspired by one of the main Doc characters: Doc McStuffins, Hallie, Lambie and Stuffy. I made the centerpiece boxes out of empty tissue boxes and felt. Each centerpiece box held tulle pom-poms of a coordinating color. We also scattered large pink and purple foam flowers along the length of the tables.

The dining tables

Centerpieces: Doc and Hallie on top, Stuffy and Lambie on bottom

Signage:

I kept it pretty low-key with signage this year. Of course, I had to have a "Doc Is In" sign at the entrance to the party, as Doc has on the door to her clinic:

Doc Ellie is in!

A closer look at the sign

There is a free printable version of the sign here. I downloaded that, took pictures of Ellie in Doc garb, and then removed Ellie from the background of the photo and saved her as a .png file, which I inserted onto the downloaded sign. I added the text in Power Point, saved it all as a picture file and had it printed at CVS. I mounted it on foam board and hung it with twine. Ellie has it hanging on her bedroom door now!

I also made a sign with pictures of Ellie from the last year arranged in a big "3," and added in bullet points about Ellie now and things she has done this year. We hung that on a post near the food table.

A look back at Ellie's year!

Food

The food was simple but tasty this year, and the table was accented with aqua plates, pink silverware and Doc napkins.

The spread

For lunch, we had "Stuffy's Stuff-wiches" (Publix subs), "Hallie's Healthy Snacks" (fruit and vegetables, including applesauce pouches for our younger guests), "Lambie's Pink Bow Pasta" (bow tie pasta salad dyed pink with food coloring), and "Chilly's Chips and Dip" (served in a Doc McStuffins bucket I found in the Easter section at Hobby Lobby).

Lunch!

We also had a selection of tasty sweets, including "Band-Aids" (wafer cookies with icing hearts), "Boo-Boo Kisses" (Hershey Kisses) and "Tongue Depressors" (lollipops).

A little something for your sweet tooth

Of course, we also had pink and purple birthday cupcakes!

They look good enough to eat!

Photo Props

I didn't plan much in the way of actual activities for this party (no games this year), but one thing we always have to have is photo props. We love pictures, and when we first had props for Ellie's "Alice in ONE-derland First Birthday," we realized it was such a fun way to make sure we got photos of our guests. We repeated the activity last year, and knew that we had to bring it back yet again this year.

We assembled photo props for each of the four main Doc McStuffins characters (excluding Doc herself, who was to be represented by Ellie in as many photos as possible): Hallie had glasses (purchased on Amazon) and a nurse hat made out of a foam visor; Lambie had lamb ears (Target Dollar Spot before Easter) with an added pink felt bow; Stuffy had dragon wings made of craft foam (loosely based on this tutorial), and Chilly had a foam top hat (found at Hobby Lobby), a blue scarf (we already owned one) and a carrot nose (made out of craft foam and a wooden dowel).

The photo props, ready for action

A closer look

We realized that many of our guests may not be familiar with these characters, so we also put out little cards with brief synopses of each character (borrowed largely from a Doc McStuffins book Ellie had in her collection).

Photos and background info about: Hallie, Doc's right hand hippo, Lambie, Doc's cuddliest companion; Stuffy, the brave dragon; and Chilly, the hypochondriac snowman. A lovable bunch!

We also included an instruction sign...

Bring Doc's toys to life!

And, of course, a photo of our family demonstrating proper photo prop usage:

The clinic crew!

We had a lot of fun with this again this year! Thanks to our guests for being such good sports!

Favors and Thank-Yous

Last but not least, we wanted to thank our guests for coming. For the littlest ones, we had favor bags containing their own doctor sets (from the Dollar Store), little coloring books I made by printing coloring pages found online, and sets of Doc McStuffins crayons. I put them all in purple gift bags and made a Doc Stethoscope decal to attach to the front.

Favor bags waiting to be enjoyed

And for all our guests, we printed Thank-You Notes that looked like prescriptions (designed by me, printed through Vistaprint) and sent those off along with prints of their photo prop pictures. I hope they all know how much we appreciate them being there and celebrating our Ellie!

Doc Ellie thanks you!

And that's it! I had a great time planning this party, and I think Ellie really loved it. I know we all had a great time!

If you came across this post because you are planning your own Doc McStuffins party and you have any questions, please feel free to email me!

As always, thanks again to our friends and family for making this party such a memorable one for all of us!

Our happy little Doc!