Build A Bear Experience

I'm not quite sure how we managed to escape the Build-A-Bear experience for 5 years but we have....until today. It was a cold Sunday afternoon & thought why not get out of the house for a bit & head to the mall?! And so we did.

We started out with having lunch at Mason's favorite place to eat - Panda Express & then made our way through the mall hitting up Mason's favorite places like the Disney store & the LEGO store. 

We then had to ride the carousel not once but twice....

After that we walked past the Build-A-Bear store & I thought it would be fun to go in & check it out since we had never been there before. It took only 10.4 seconds until Mase had a "bear" picked out & was ready to go.

I had never been in Build-A-Bear before so I had no idea what it all entailed. I assumed that from the name of it you pick out a bear, get it stuffed & take it home. Boy was I wrong. It is quite the process & as I found out can get expensive with all the "accessories" when it is all said & done.

So how does this process work?

First, you pick out your "shell" of the character you want. This shell ranges from Paw Patrol, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Pokémon, Peter Rabbit & all kinds of other characters as well as the usual bears.

Mason chose the character "Squirtle" from the Pokémon cartoon.

Next, once you have selected the shell you want, you take it over to the stuffing machine to be stuffed.

Once it is stuffed you pick out a heart to put inside your stuffed character. There is a little routine that is done before the heart is put inside. You put the heart on your arm to make your bear "nice & strong". You put it on your chest to make your bear "kind & full of love" & you put it up to your head to "promise to always watch over & take care of your bear" & then the heart goes inside.





Once the heart is "blessed" you can then pick out a smelly disc in the scent of your choice to put in him as well (cue accessory #1) to make him smell yummy. Mason chose the cotton candy scent....probably because it was blue - his favorite color & the disc was put inside. Now Squirtle smells like cotton candy.

Next you can walk over to the station where you can officially give your bear a name & you will get a printed certificate of adoption with your name & your bears official name on it (accessory #2). Since Mason chose a character from a cartoon he already had a name & Mase didn't want to change it so he opted out of the naming ceremony.

We spent a good bit of time looking at all the accessories you can buy for your bear from shirts, outfits, PJ's, shoes, coats, - you name it, you could buy it. Thank goodness my kid is pretty plain & didn't need all the bells & whistles. He was pretty content with Squirtle just as he was & ended up being more excited that he had a backpack he could carry him around in.

After we checked out & were on our way out the door, out came the Build-A-Bear mascot. Mase immediately ran over to her, gave her a big hug & asked for a picture with her. So cute!

On a scale of 1-10 I would have to say our Build-A-Bear experience was a 10! Mason absolutely loved it & it really wasn't that expensive. For the bear & the experience we spent around $40. You can definitely make it as cheap or expensive as you want. Even though it was our first time visiting, I can honestly say that it won't be our last time we visit this place.

Little does Mason know, they gave me a $10 off coupon to be used next month :)