Girl's slumber party ideas

[Amanda]

My daughter is turning 8 on March 2nd. I want to have a slumber party for her and maybe 4 or 5 friends. Grandma has already agreed to take my three boys overnight, so I won't have to worry about them causing any trouble.

This will be my first slumber party with any of my kids. I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas that anyone may have! I don't want to get too heavy into games or anything, but I was thinking of a few things:

fingernail painting
face painting
a quick and easy craft
movie and popcorn

I thought of having cake and presents in the afternoon so that the boys could join in on that, then around dinner time hubby can take them to Grandma's. I'm totally open to suggestions and ideas!

[Shawn]

Keeping them busy:

How about making cookies with the girls and then letting them decorate their own cookies.

I like your nail painting idea, that could work out real well.


Craft Ideas:

For the craft, why not have them make bracelets. You can buy boads fairly cheap and they can make their own jewlery.

Buy a white t-shirt of pillowcase for each child, then have them decorate it with markers or fabric paint. Then they can sleep on or wear their creation.


I hope these few ideas help. I will think of more and then let you know

[Amanda]

These ideas are wonderful Shawn! Thank you!! I actually am very excited about this party, having three boys and only one girl can really wear on me. The fact that Grandma is taking the boys and I get to be a "girl" again is getting me all geared up. LOL

[MomDadinOne]

My daughter just turned eight! What an awesome age! The pillowcase idea is VERY cool! Maybe have some stencils on hand in flower-power patterns or letter stencils to help groove up their pillowcase!

If you don't have a karaoke machine (as most of us don't)...maybe you know someone that has one or could rent one for the night? Just a thought!

Have fun! And don't forget...you're one of the girls! Put your hair up in pigtails, and strap on your fuzzy slippers and pj's too!

[Sandraa]

I threw my daughter a slumber party for her 9th birthday.
When the girls arrived we ate pizza and then went to play putt-putt golf. When we got back home we opened gifts and had the cake and ice cream.
As a craft I bought some cheap wooden door hangers that I gave each girl to decorate with paint, stickers, stamps and odds and ends I had around the house and let them take as long as they wanted. We played a scavenger hunt game where at the end they found there treat bags I had hidden.
We played "Who wants to be a millionare Jr." and then had everyone get on their pajamas and got the movies and munchies out. As long as you have plenty of activities lined up the girls will not get too rowdy on you! Ü
Good luck!

[mpriv]

I had a party for my 8 year old last year. We made our own pizzas, painted nails, & made picture frames. We took the clear plastic frames & put stickers on them & then we took a polaroid pic w/the birthday girl for each child to put in her frame. Then they watched Mary Kate & Ashley movies until I thought it was Chinese water torture. Pancakes for breakfast & goody bags to go. Have fun!
Marianne

[heremi]

When I was a little girl, we always made "Monkey Bread" before we went to bed at my slumber parties, for mom to throw in the oven in the morning--that and some fruit and we were energized until pickup time. You probably have the recipe somewhere, but briefly: The girls cut refridgerated biscuit dough (4 cans) into quarters, roll them into balls, and shake them a few at a time in a bag of cinnamon-sugar, then toss them into a tube pan. They sit in the fridge all night and then in the morning, mom pours in melted butter/cinnamon/sugar and bakes it for 45 minutes--it smells soooo yummy! And you pull off hunks to eat with your fingers.
Also, once we decorated "gingerbread" houses (actually frosted milk cartons from school) with candy--that was a hit!

[amycoe]

I just had our first slumber party last weekend for my daughter who turned 6. We had my two girls plus 4 others, and it was a little crazy. My best suggestion is to have one other mother or friend of yours to do it with you. That way when everyone is asking for something different at the same time, you have four hands instead of two. It will help keep your sanity!

Our schedule went like this: everyone arrived about 7pm (after dinner). We blew up balloons and put candy in them, then the girls sat on them to pop them and kept the candy. Then some did water paints and some watched tv. They played a little (still at the age where playing with toys is cool!) while I finished decorating the cake. We had snacks (mini marshmallows--which was a big hit!) and got ready for bed. It was the first sleepover for all of them so we went to bed around 10pm and the last one fell asleep just after midnight. They woke up about 7:15am, had mini donuts and milk, got dressed and watched cartoons. We left the house at 10:30am and went to play at Bullwinkle's. They have a large play structure similar to Discovery Zone, only huge! It was $5 per kid, and a big success. Went home at 12:30, ate lunch, had cake and ice cream and was done at 2pm. For the ice cream I used an idea from the local ice cream store and made clowns out of a scoop of ice cream, sugar cone for a hat, 1/2 cherry for the nose, and frosting eyes and hair and mouth. It was a huge hit! I think if they were older they could have made the ice cream clowns themselves. They were super easy. I hope I have given you some different ideas!

[Amanda]

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your ideas! I think I am going to go with a "flower power" type theme. Here's what I was thinking so far:

(and not necessarily in this order LOL)

cupcakes with white frosting, I'll use the colored cake decorating gels to make flower petals, and I'll use either a gumdrop or if I can get the Easter M&M's (that will be ideal as they are pastel colored) to put in the middle as the center of the flower.

face paint - figured I would paint flowers on their cheeks ;-)

fingernail painting - paint with a solid color, kind of dark like purple or margenta, then you use white, and with a toothpick, you dot on white spots where petals would got, then drag the toothpick gently through the dot to spread it out like a petal. They are so cute! My daughter and I have done these before and they turn out marvelous.

craft - It's a toss up between two things. Either door hangers or flower window hangers. I was just looking back through these posts as I could have sworn someone here suggested the door hangers, but I don't see it. Anyway, I figure we could get those inexpensive wood doorhangers from th ecraft store, they could each paint them and decorate them with their names and a flower or two. The flower window hanger is attached below, I made this from salt dough. I could make them up ahead of time and have them ready for them to paint.

I think that's enough as far as entertainment goes. They are at the age where they sit for an entire movie and we have plenty of microwave popcorn. I also plan on having juice boxes on hand (plenty of them) so that I don't have to deal with someone coming up every three minutes needing a refill LOL nor do I need to worry about spills.

If this theme sparks any ideas please let me know!

And Shawn, I love the pillow case idea, but don't really have the room to do that here. House isn't big enough.

[Amanda]

Well here's what I have planned so far:

Fingernail painting - We will be painting the girls fingernails with whatever color they want as the base coat, then we'll be doing flowers with white, or if they choose white as the base we'll use color for the flower. I learned a little trick from my hair stylist. She told me to paint on a clear top coat first, then to use acrylic paint (like Delta) as the color for their nails! Then just put another coat of clear over the top.

Face painting - Going to paint flowers on their cheeks in whatever color they like

Crafts - Flower pots. I have some clay pots left over from the Christmas crafts I did (the small ones), so they can paint their pot. Then I'll have them paint some craft sticks green and glue foam flowers to the ends. Then we'll secure the flowers with styrofoam in the bottom of the pot. We'll probably cover the styrofoam with green felt to hide it. I also found flower shaped sponges, so they can sponge the pot if they want to afterward.

Game - now don't laugh I was thinking about doing a "pin the center on the flower" type of game. I bought a Minnie Mouse rubber stamp set that came with bow, flower, and ribbon rubber stamps, so that will be the prize for the winner.

Party favors - I found little flower mirrors with play lipsticks, I also have a bunch of brand new flavored lip balms from Avon, and figure I'll get some play jewelry to go in there too. I also have some lollipops I bought at the dollar store.

Cake - I am going to make a confetti cake. I'm going to use a single round cake pan, going to make half the batter in there. Then the remaining batter I'm making cupcakes with. I am going to frost the cake with pink icing (per my dd's request) and the cupcakes with white. Then on the pink cake I will draw a large white flower and on the white cupcakes I'll use cake decorator gel in different colors to draw flowers on them (pink, orange, blue, green, purple, yellow), and gumdrops for the centers. The reason I am doing the cake sized one is so there's enough room to put 8 candles on

Popcorn & Movie - Microwave popcorn of course, and I figured that The Princess Diaries would be a good movie. It's definitely a "little chick" flick and my dd has been wanting to see it.

I have also decided to stock up on juice boxes so I don't have to keep filling up cups, nor will I have to worry about spills.

I am hoping to have everyone down by 10:00 or 10:30. I'll make pancakes in the morning and use whipped cream to put flowers on them Then I'm having the parents pick the kids up by 11:00 am.

PHEW!