I am having a home birthday party for my 9 year old DD on Mar.1. So there will be 10 girls, and it's only for 2 1/2 hours. So far we are making soap, and having a pinata, but I want something that would be really fun and exciting!



TIA,
Kristie

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Kristie
mom to Tyler (11/94) & Joycie (3/99)
www.thegrandskofour.shutterfly.com

What about other types of crafts? My daughter just went to a craft party(kids were 7) and they painted their own t-shirts and made bracelets. I saw really cute aprons in Joanns kids section. You could have them paint an apron and then maybe bake some cookies or make their own mini pizzas or something? If they are into the bead bracelets to go along with it you could make beaded page savers(found this idea on Family Fun site and my daughter can't make enough). She made a few for a couple of friends and then took them to school--came home later that afternoon saying she needed 5 more and the colors they needed to be. I think that went on for a week. When she attended the craft party the little girls Mom said she uses her daughters all the time. They really do work and maybe you could find cheap books for party favors to go along with them. Another thing you could do would be makeovers, dance competition or karaoke. Let us know what you did and how much fun the girls had.

Set up a table with paper bags and markers, stickers, etc... and as the guest arrive have them decorate a bag with their name to put their stuff from the Pinata. Another thing you can do is make cupcakes but don't frost them. Then when its time to eat cake have another parent help you put globs of frosting on plates along with a cupcake or two. Also have candies to decorated the cup cakes. For my sons March birthday I used to hide birthday eggs with prizes in them.

treasure hunt
karaoke

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The last couple of house birthday parties my 12 year old DD has gone to and said were alot of fun were one where they decorated cookies (already baked) and played something called Guitar Hero on PS2, the other one was a sleepover and they made their own individual pizzas and decorated their own cupcakes, did karioke and watched movies.

I am really happy to see people doing more parties at home here in my area! We always used to do or have to go to the skating rink, bowling alley, the movies, the beauty school salon or something like that. All these places are 25 miles away (50 miles roundtrip) from where we live, the price of gas is so expensive now and I don't think people want to drive that far. We even had a pool party for DD's birthday in November and heated up our pool and had a cookout, we had a 70 degree day in the middle of winter which was highly unlikely and normally doesn't happen, so we took advantage of it.

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Thanks everyone for the great ideas! Right now we are leaning toward a fashion show, & a scavenger hunt!, but we may throw in a few more crafts for good measure!

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Kristie
mom to Tyler (11/94) & Joycie (3/99)
www.thegrandskofour.shutterfly.com

this is one of my favorite websites.. check it out.
Birthday Party Ideas - Kids birthday party ideas shared by parents around the world to help you plan a kids birthday party.

As for the fashion show.. last year I split the girls into 2 teams. (they were 8/9.) I put them where they couldn't see each other. Each team got a pair of scissors, packing tape, packing paper, streamers, tissue paper, and whatever else I had on hand. Then they had 10 minutes to "dress" a "model" (someone in their group). When they were done their model strutted around and they had to describe the outfit. It was very funny.

We played "exchange" which is a French game. Give each girl a # and sit them in a circle. One child goes in the middle with a blindfold. She says 2 #s and they try to switch places and she tries to catch them. Lots of giggles..

Play a "hot potato" type of game. For our HSM party we passed a microphone and had HSM themed slips of paper, but you can use anything. When the music stops instead of having one child "out" have them pick a slip of paper and do the activity. (silly things like sing "head shoulders knees and toes in a squeeky voice" or "somersault around the room".

This year we had an egg drop that they liked a lot. Put the girls in teams and gave them them a bag of recycled materials and an egg. They wrapped it up and dropped it from the top stair into the foyer onto the tile. (Amazingly there was no mess...) One survived, one cracked, and 2 were shattered.

We also made no-sew pillows from fleece and stuffing.. not very expensive if you get the fleece on sale. Lots of pre-cutting though.

Do you have a theme? I always go from there.. (and I can help you more.. I love this stuff!) Last year we did "around the world" with activities from different countries, and this year was HSM.

We had an "art" party one year where we made fleece no-sew ponchos which were easy.. The girls cut out the center and made the fringe then painted them with fabric paint stamps. We also did sand art, and they decorated the cake.

Have fun!

Do you have a photo printer? If so, you could take some pictures of the girls at the beginning of the party, print them out and let them all do a scrapbook page to take home. Scrapbook paper is pretty cheap and stickers for them are always on sale at the craft stores.
The girls would all have alittle something extra to take home as a reminder of the great time they had.

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MyCoupons Is #1 for Holiday Shopping

OK, I have to ask - what is HSM???

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Mommy to Jake, Alexis, Abigail and Joshua, Wife to Matt

when my daughter was 8 we had a formal Tea Party - used all the fine china the girls dressed up - with white gloves and hats - made treasure boxes ( I bought some jewerly boxes to decorate) we had a formal tea - with little cakes and the girls chatted and had a great time - now they are 14 and still talk about that Tea Party

I was going to suggest a scrapbook page for each girl too. You could ask them to bring some favorite photos from home. Then have each girl pick out a page and provide stickers, cutouts, etc., names. I did this with my 7 year old niece when she was spending the day with me and she absolutely loved it. She took it home and has it displayed in her room. She titled hers "My Family" and had pictures of everyone.

"High School Musical". Sorry.. I usually post on a Disney board.

Holy cow now I have so many choices this is getting to be more fun than stressful!! THANK YOU THANK YOU!

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Kristie
mom to Tyler (11/94) & Joycie (3/99)
www.thegrandskofour.shutterfly.com

I just wanted to say that I ordered personalized birthday bingo cards, and some birthday "lottery" scratch offs from a lady on ebay! The scratch offs are especially cool because they come in a pack of 10 and one of the cards has a cupcake under the scratch off part which means it's the winner!

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Kristie
mom to Tyler (11/94) & Joycie (3/99)
www.thegrandskofour.shutterfly.com

My daughter is having her 12th Birthday Party today. We are doing a *Rob your neigbor* party. You buy three small gifts for each invited guest ($2-3 a gift), or you can have the invited girls bring the small three gifts instead of bringing a birthday present. You put the wrapped gifts in the middle of the table and everyone (one at a time) rolls two dice. Everytime they roll a seven they pick a gift out of the middle. After the gifts are all picked...then you set a timer for 20 minutes and you do the same thing, only this time you *Rob* your neighbor, and take a wrapped gift. We do have a rule that you cannot take a persons last gift. When the timer goes off, you unwrap the gift (but don't get too comfortable), because there is one more round. The last round you take whatever you want (now you actually know what the gifts are). When the timer goes off....you keep whatever you have. We did this once before for her birthday and they all loved it!!!! I got girly stuff for them, small toys, candy, etc...

That sounds so sweet! I think I'll take this idea for my girls! Thanks Couponconnie~