Pre-teen Craft Party

SURPRISE!!!!

Paige had this brilliant idea for her birthday party - she wanted a surprise party. Well, you can’t just know you’re having a surprise party so I told her we were just doing a regular party and the invites went out for her crafting party. But Paige didn’t know that all the girls were going to come an hour early while Paige and I went to the store. So she got her surprise party and was thrilled!

It was so fun to have all her friends here - a whopping 11 girls.

The girls painted and created and had lots of laughs. It was really fun (if not slightly exhausting. Thank heavens my sister was here to help me. Totally couldn’t have done it all without her.) We made Halloween blocks, washer necklaces and chalkboard advent calendars. The calendars are cool because they are on little picture frames with changeable papers for the different holidays. The blocks turned out adorable and the girls loved designing their own necklaces. Whew - it really was kind of a lot with so many girls. But it was also a lot of fun and totally worth it.

The trick to a party like this is knowing how long everything will take to make (paint and dry). We started with painting blocks. Then moved to the necklaces. The gel on the necklaces dried fairly quickly when put in front of a heater. Next we did gifts. After that we made the calendars – those are quick and no drying is needed. We had our dessert and FINALY we put the vinyl on the blocks and finished the necklaces. The girls only made one Halloween block each but had 3 to choose from and tons of vinyl faces from Simple Sayings Vinyl.

Instead of traditional cake - I went with the “creating” theme and let the girls create their own ice cream sundays - and boy did they load up!  Tweens can chow!

This is not a one man show – unless you have 5 or less friends. But go and get your craft on – Birthday style!

Glow Party

Celebrating this 12 year old’s birthday – Glow style! Before you get started planning your own glow in the dark party here is tip #1 – buy a UV flashlight. You can find them online or as close as walmart for about $10.  Keep this little baby in the purse and take it with you EVERYWHERE while you prep for this party. You can use it in stores to see if something “neon” actually glows.  There are some bright things that surprisingly don’t glow.  The kids had a blast taking the flashlight to their closets and throughout the house to find other things that glow as we prepared and planned.

ACTIVITIES

We used two blacklights and a lamp with a blacklight bulb. The more lights the better. Some fun glow parties I have seen are in unfinished basements where blacklights could be hung from the ceiling (ideal) but we had to put them on shelves and tables. It worked great.

The girls did coloring, which was super cool with the blacklights. We just went through our crayons and highlighters, used our nifty UV flashlight, and found everything we needed and already had. They made rubberband bracelets that glowed and necklaces with glowing beads.

Since we are always telling our kids not to draw on themselves, of course they loved designing and painting body art with gel pens and highlighters. We tried this out before the party (again with our now-favorite UV flashlight). It’s so cool!  The girls also painted their nails with some glow in the dark polish.

Glam Shop Dress Up. Most of these items came from the dollar store or my own closet.

We had one outdoor scavenger hunt for glow bugs hidden in the yard. They took turns with the flashlight to find all of them. They were clear bugs from the dollarstore that glow with the blacklight. (ok, this picture looks likes something si-fi or something you’d see under a microscope … but they were the only bugs I found that glowed. Boys would eat this up and the girls could have cared less what they looked like – they were on the hunt.)

FOOD

After a while of playing in the dark it was time for cake and ice cream. I decided to avoid eating in the dark all together and just made fun and bright cupcakes.  There’s plenty of awesome things people do with food, but mostly it is the plasticware that glows and I decided to save money and skip that.

DECORATING

It was hard to end the party because the fun just never stopped.  We had simple decorations with streamers and posters. Beyond that the glow was all that was needed.

TIPS

#1 - Buy a UV Flashlight

#2 - Don’t think you have to do glowing food. You can save a lot of money by not glowing your food, plus it will save you a huge mess to clean up later.

#3 - A tripod is best for photos in the dark, but that only helps if your subject isn’t moving – which obviously isn’t the case with kids. I played around with the settings on my phone before the party and found that the pictures weren’t crisp but were good enough.

#4 - I saved money by borrowing a blacklight. Start asking around for friends or neighbors who have a light you can borrow.

#5 – Plan on this party lasting a long time. Playing in the dark is so much fun! I think a small group is ideal, but if your space allows for more people, by all means PARTY IT UP!

INVITATIONS

It was tricky to make an invite that appeared bright enough to be glowing. This has a lot going on. You can just as easly do black with basic bright font and it will look awesome. We didn’t do thank you cards for this party, Paige just gave them stuff that glowed with a thank you tag.

Download a blank invite below.