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You will need several blenders for the party, depending upon the number of guests you have. Two or three girls should be able to share one appliance, so you won’t have to borrow too many. You will also need an assortment of fruits, yogurts, and toppings like graham cracker crumbs or sprinkles to put on top. You’ll also want some rubber scrapers and small measuring cups. If you have fancy glasses and colorful straws for the finished smoothies, that should do it.

Invitations: Include a drinking straw in the invitation with a picture of a yummy looking drink. You can often find note pads or cards with apples, strawberries, or other fruits pictured which would enhance your theme.

Arrival: As the girls arrive, have them wash their hands to get ready to be a smoothie creator. You might want to provide paper chef’s hats or plain aprons to get them in the mood. At least have all guests tie back their long hair and remind them of food handling safety.

Main Event: Have the girls listen while you show the ingredients that are available. Have them think about what flavors they want to combine to make the best smoothie. For the first round, limit them to about ¼ cup of only 3 ingredients, to make a sample. You can let them pour just a taste into tiny paper cups and trade with each other to see which ones they like the best. Have each girl decide how to improve on the test batch, wash her blender container, and then make a full-sized drink. They can pour them into the good glasses this time and add the topping of their choice. Be sure to take a picture of each girl with her creation before she drinks it. You could provide recipe cards if the kids want to write down what was in the smoothie and take it home.

Refreshments: The treats for this party are already done, you may want to add some cheese or crackers to go with the drinks, and you’re finished.

Invite each girl to come and bring her pet, which can be a toy or real-live animal. If you decide to include living pets, you may want to keep your guest list small to avoid problems. One or two adult helpers who are good with animals will make things easier as well. Ask the kids to bring their real pets in a kennel, cage, or aquarium, or on a leash.

You might also ask guests to bring a wagon or stroller to show off her pet during the parade, or consider borrowing such items from around the neighborhood.

Invitations: Take a picture of the birthday-girl with her pet to include with the invitation. If the animal in question can wear a little hat or coat, that would be great. Be sure to include the time the party will end, so that parents will know when to pick up the kids and animals.

Arrival: As the party begins, provide a place where the pets can be displayed, either indoors or outdoors. To start things off, have a “show and tell” session so each child can tell about her pet.

Main Event: The girls will be getting their pets ready and then having a pet parade. If you can provide some doll clothes or hats that may fit cats or small dogs that would be good. The girls can make scarves or capes out of fabric that their pet (even stuffed ones) can wear. They could also decorate the cage or kennel for the parade, or embellish the wagon the pet will ride in, so provide some streamers or balloons for this. When all the pets are costumed and have some form of transportation, start the parade. The best parade has an audience, of course, so if you can recruit some neighbors or grandparents for this function, the kids will love it. You can parade around a park, through apartment lobbies, or down the sidewalk. Be sure to take plenty of pictures or video that you can replay when it’s over.

Refreshments: A cake with an animal theme would be good, or cupcakes or muffins with animal crackers on top would work. Be sure to provide some dog or kitty treats, too.

You can hire a face-painter to come to your party, often for $30 or less, by checking local bulletin boards or online resources. Or, you could call your local high school drama teacher or community theater to see if they can recommend someone who is handy with make-up. There is also the option of doing it yourself, and there are many books and Internet sites with step-by-step instructions for how to create animal faces and other designs. One set of costume makeup will decorate a whole roomful of kids, so it is not too expensive.

Invitations: You can make your own invitations with a picture of a well-painted face, say something from the play “Cats.” If you’d rather use a purchased invite, consider finding a picture of a face that you could include, and make copies to send to each guest so even the little ones will know what to expect. If you will provide “bibs” to protect your partygoers’ clothing you should say that in the invitation. Otherwise, caution them not to wear their best outfit.

Arrival: As guests enter, try to have some pictures available for them to choose from as they decide what they want to look like. Kids could draw a number from a hat, which tells the order in which they will be painted.

Main Event: Provide a few activities for the children while they wait their turn. Little ones would love to draw faces with finger paint on paper, or “paint” right on the table top with shaving cream. Older kids could draw funny or scary faces on previously inflated balloons. Provide plenty of mirrors near the face-paint chair so that kids can see how their appearance changes. As each child’s face is done, take her picture and promise to send it to her. Better yet, take a digital photo and print it on your home computer so she can take it home as she leaves.

Refreshments: Colorful snacks like Jell-O Jigglers will fit right in to your painting theme. Or allow each child to decorate a cupcake with candies and sprinkles to make yet another face.

The game requires two teams of about 5 or six players to be fun, but can accommodate more if you like. You will need a large open space with a few obstacles such as trees to hide behind. A school playground may work well for a location, but a park or large backyard will work, too. You will need to rig up two “flags” of some kind for the two teams. The simplest thing is just to duct tape towels or pieces of fabric in 2 distinct colors to two dowels or yardsticks. You will also need armbands the same colors as the flags, for each player. Ribbons or scraps of fabric will work well for this. Your group should be divided as evenly as possible between the two teams. It will help to have one or more adults to act as referees.

Invitations: Include little flags in your invitations. You can find them at a party store for pennies. Be sure to tell guest they will be outside for the game and that they should dress accordingly.

Arrival: As guests come in, you should have a method of determining if they will be on the “Red” or “Blue” team. They could draw appropriately colored slips of paper out of a box, or number off 1,2,1,2 as they enter the door. When the teams have assembled, have each member put on an armband the same color as her team’s flag. When all players are ready you need to explain the rules.

Main Event: The playing area needs to be carefully defined. It should be divided down the middle with each half belonging to one team. Use rocks, trees, or markers of some kind to indicate the field of play. Anyone who runs outside of the area will be “jailed.” Each team needs to find the safest place to locate the flag and designate one or two team members to guard it. The other members of the team will attempt to sneak across into their opponent’s area and swipe their flag without getting caught. Anyone who is tagged while in “enemy territory” is escorted to the “jail.” Any tree or object can serve as the jail and should be supervised by a referee with a timer who can release the prisoners only after they have served a five-minute penalty. The first team to sneak across and capture their opponent’s flag and carry it into their own area without being tagged wins. You can play several rounds of the game, switching teams around to give everyone a chance to succeed.

Refreshments: Typical picnic fare of sandwiches or hot dogs would work well for this outdoor activity.

This is the perfect party theme for musically minded girls and boys. Because American Idol is watched by millions of families, your guests should have a good idea what to expect and come ready to wow the audience. It should not be too hard to rent or borrow a karaoke machine and some CD’s. If you use actual karaoke discs, the song lyrics will appear on the TV screen with a little bouncing ball that shows the performer where she should be in the song. For younger girls and boys in this age range, you may just want to play the songs they love and let them lip-synch with their favorite artist. If you can rig up a microphone and small speaker that will probably satisfy them.

Invitations: Invite your guests with a computer-generated invitation or postcard that says, “You’re going to Hollywood.” It should be a golden color; to mimic the golden tickets contestants get on AI. You could ask the partygoers to bring favorite CD’s if they would like.

Arrival: Whisk your guests away to “Hair and Makeup” where they can use some hair accessories and cosmetics to make each other glamorous. While waiting their turn in the make-up chair, contestants should look through the song titles available for the contest and choose the one they will perform.

Main Event: Allow each girl one practice session with an adult helper in a private place. While waiting to rehearse, guests can make “finger sandwiches” or other treats for the “after party.”

After rehearsal, call everyone to the “stage” area and begin the competition. You should probably use adults or older siblings for the judges. If you know someone who could imitate Randy, Paula, or Simon…so much the better. Caution your judges against being too critical.

After the singing you’ll have to decide if you want to declare just one winner or provide a prize or trophy for everyone.

Refreshments: For a real Hollywood flair, serve sparkling juice in fancy glasses along with the previously prepared snacks. You can say you knew the next Idol when she first started out.

Every little girl loves to wear jewelry and what can be more fun than to make your own! This is a fun and easy birthday party that will send each girl home with a new piece of jewelry that she can wear over and over and remember the fun she had at your little girls birthday party.

For this party you will need stretchy string so that you can tie the ends together one the girls are done and avoid having to purchase clasp and getting them on. You will also need to purchase several different colors and styles of beads but make sure they are easy to handle and string so that none of the girls will have trouble getting the necklace made.

To set up the jewelry making table you should cover it in a table cloth to avoid losing the beads in the cracks. Place different beads into paper cups to make them easy to get to for the girls to be able to pick and use. Once the girls have completed the necklace have them tie the two ends together or have an adult tie the ends together for extra strength.

Each girl will now have a beautiful and cool necklace to take home with them from your little ones birthday party.

So in this fashion show you can get your little girl ready for fashion week. Come up with a name for many categories so that every girl wins some thing, she can be little Miss Cutie Pie and her friend could be Little Miss Diva extreme, this makes the party more fun knowing that you have won an interesting prize. You could even buy tiaras and you could make sashes out of pieces of material at the sewing supply store.

You could buy material for the sashes and a quick visit to the dollar store will be enough to get lip gloss, and tiaras as well as very stylish boas, then you will need to turn your back yard into a runway with chairs along the runway for the children to walk like model. You will also need a photographer (okay one of your older children or your husband can be the photographer) and let the children take their first picture and put it into their portfolio book ( a small picture book at the dollar store will give you the perfect portfolio).

Then you line the girls up and using a karaoke machine as a microphone you then announce each girl and what she is wearing, all the while taking pictures as if they were real models. The walk down the catwalk and the do their pose and they walk back, make sure you get a great picture for their portfolio. Then you need to print out each picture and let the girls put them into their portfolio and put stickers and sparkles to decorate their books. Then they can take it home and add more pictures to their portfolio.

All little girls loves to have special bath items that are just for her so why not make sweet smelling soap for her to take home and enjoy! Making soap is quite simple. You will want to make glycerin soap since it is easier and quicker to make. Many craft stores have soap making kits but these kits can be quite expensive especially if you are buying several kits for several girls.

The best way to purchase items for this special birthday party is too buy them in bulk. You can still purchase them from a local craft store but it will be a lot cheaper this way. You should purchase at least one slab of glycerin soap per child to make sure each child has enough soap. You can purchase different soap molds and since the soap hardens rather quickly these molds will be able to be uses multiple times. Also purchase soap coloring so that each girl can have her own special color of soap. A little goes a long way when it comes to the soap dye so you wont need more than a few bottles to get you through. You can also purchase scents but read the package of the scents to make sure it is safe for candle making. Again a little goes a long way with scents so you will only need a few bottles.

Glycerin soap can be made using a microwave so you will need several microwave safe cups that you can toss out once the party is over. You will fits have each girl cut up her slab of glycerin into small squares. Place a few squares into the microwave safe cup and microwave it in 10 second intervals to make sure the soap melts but does not over cook. Remove the cup carefully. Add a few drops of coloring and scent to the soap. Then pour the soap into the mold and wait for it to harden. Hardening usually takes about 10 minutes but you can speed this up by placing them in the freezer. Once the soap is harden simply turn the mold over and the soap should fall right out. It is doesn’t run it under a little warm, not hot warm, water to help the soap separate from the mold. Place the soap in a plastic bag and now each girl can take home her own hand made soap to enjoy.

To have a cooking party, choose a food that your children will love, mostly finger foods and deserts, give each child a chef’s hat and if possible an apron. Teach each of the children how to make the same food and then get the ingredients to cook. When you are done you can have a cook off competition to see who made the best foods.

In order to get ready for this party you will want to make a trip to the store and get a few really simple recipes. Buy all of the ingredients needed to make the recipe and buy children’s sized chefs hats, and be sure to call each child “chef”, then teach the children how to make their favorite foods and have them serve and introduce the foods that they made like real chefs do. It will be a fun time and the little ones will feel like they are big like the older children.

Playdoh is so much fun no matter how old the child is but the best ages for playdoh is between the age of 3-7 years old. You can pick up a lot of playdoh in large packs at the dollar store.

Setting up a playdoh party is simple and easy. You will want to cover both the table and the floor to protect both surfaces. You can provide the kids with cookie cutters to make shapes and different things with. Plastic knives are also something that kids will use to play with the playdoh. Don’t worry about the kids mixing the colors of playdoh together. It will be more fun for them and keep them busy for a long time during the party.

This is a quick and simple party that kids can have a lot of fun with and needs very little help from adults to play and have fun together. You can also send each child home with a small tub of playdoh if you purchase enough for each child to have.