My Years of Ideas : Idea: Girl Rainbow Birthday Parties

It is time to begin planning my daughters birthday. This year's theme will be a Girl Pirate Theme Slumber Party. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Last year she had a Rainbow Slumber Party. It was great fun for all, and pretty easy to setup.

Plan to send big brothers to Grandma's!! (Actually you don't have to do this, but trust me when you get to the next step, big brother will be happy to go!).
Determine how many people you will invite. We invited 9 girls because I can sit 10 around my dining room table. Send invites a couple weeks prior to the party for optimal attendance. Be clear on your invite that you need a RSVP. (My daughter is diligent with reminding her friends have their Moms call!)
Determine how long you want your party to be and what activities you will do and create a schedule. We had the girls dropped off on a Friday at 5:00 PM and two pickup times: 9:00 PM Friday night for those not sleeping over and Saturday at 11:00 AM. Having two pickup times was a hit because of sports some girls had morning games or other obligations and no-one felt they had to miss out if they couldn't sleep over.
Plan to serve breakfast, dinner and snacks.
I suggest having a couple of other adult helpers to set up the next activity while one is still in the works.

Printed all the details about the party on my computer.

Sydney Rubber Stamped the front page

For this party we made our invites. Simple and easy, with a color printer, some rubber stamps and color pens.

Decide on what to do for decorations. Honestly, this theme was the EASIEST theme ever. Most of the decorations can be purchased at your local dollar store. We did a rainbow balloon theme table cloth, papers plates, steamers, dangling swirlers and lots and lots of multi-color balloons. I suggest you purchase at least two of the table clothes, then you can switch them out after messy crafts and pizza the night before and have a fresh one for breakfast.

Dinner Pizza: (we did little Ceasars, Hot and Ready Cheese and Pepperoni. Kids could care less and it is quick, fast and cheap). Sprite poured over Koolaid ice cubes
Dessert: Cupcakes and Ice Cream
Movie Snacks: Concession Stand stocked with rainbow favorites (Rainbow Popcorn, Rainbow candy such as Skittles, licorice, and giant suckers).
Breakfast: Rainbow Pancakes w/ syrup, rainbow fruit platter, OJ and Milk.

5:00 PM the girls started arriving and we started with decorating their treat bags. I had everything separated into individual plain paper bags, supplied markers, stickers and rubber stamps. Each girl started making their bags as they arrived to the party by claiming their bag and putting their name on it. It was a good way to start off since it is a self paced activity. Have Dad (or other helper) run for pizza.

6:00 (geez, these girls eat fast) - Start Activities: I purchased activities kits, mostly at Jo-Ann's, so check your local crafting store. The sell packs made for "camp" that had multiple kits for a fairly reasonable price and decent quality. Sun-catchers, Key chains and button rings. I let them work on them in the order they wanted, this worked well for items that needed to share. I had 5 glue bottles, 4 sets of paints. Pick your activities based on the level of help you want to be providing. Most of the girls were pretty good at painting, needed some help with cutting and tying the key chains, and frankly the gluing of the button rings was pretty messy.

6:30 - Serve cupcakes and ice cream (could also be an activity, of decorating with candy, we didn't do this as I decorated them)

7:15 Make friendship bracelets. Make sure you know how to make one...hahaha. Apparently this is harder than I imagined. Luckily one invitee was the obi-wan of bracelet making. After several attempt to show the other girls, she finally whipped one out for all 10 girls in about 15 minutes.

8:00 begin movies, we rented two. The girls who were leaving at 9:00 still got to watch one. Be sure to stock up at the concession stand before getting settled.