It’s party time! Celebrate your daughter’s special day by coming up with a theme for her party that’s around her interests – whether she’s a princess wannabe, a zoo animal expert, or has always wanted to hold her own rock concert. The party is about to begin with these ideas for girls’ birthday party themes!
Tip: Use the theme ideas below as a jumping off point to brainstorm with your child how to create the perfect party for her from invites to decorations, activities to snacks and sweets.
Princess
Invites: Tape, a straw, ribbon, and construction paper – that’s all you need to make a homemade princess wand. Well, and maybe a little glitter. Print the party information and then shrink it down to put on a construction-paper star. Adhere it to a straw or wooden dowel along with ribbon and make glue dots on each point then add glitter.
Decor: Adorn the walls with pink streamers and use plain pink or white sheets to create the appearance of a princess castle.
Food: Frozen fan in the family? Make Olaf lookalikes using either marshmallows or powdered sugar doughnut holes. Or, stick with the wand idea and dip pretzel rods into chocolate.
Activities: Let each guest make her own edible princess jewelry with string or licorice string and adorn with gummy lifesavers or bright-colored cereal pieces. Here’s another thought: Play Simon Says but instead make it “Princess Says.” Have “Simon” aka the princess wear a hat or other princess garb to direct the other party goers.
Rockstar
Invites: Time for a show! That’s exactly what you can say on your child’s rockstar birthday party invite. Make the card look like an event ticket to a concert so guests know where and when the big show starts.
Decor: Turn your party room into a concert venue by placing black sheets on walls and adorning them with cutout stars in neon colors. Use Christmas tree lights to frame doors and put signs above them that say things like, “Band Practice Area” and “This Way to the Stage.”
Food: Rockstars love to sing, right? Why not whip up treats that look like mics?! Bake cupcake batter in flat-bottom ice cream cones. Frost with black icing and then add silver sprinkles. Or top a thick pretzel stick with a large marshmallow and then dip it into white melted chocolate then black or silver sprinkles.
Activities: A rockstar party wouldn’t be complete without music – and instruments! Make poster board, life-sized cutouts of guitars and let the girls color them. Attach thick ribbon to both ends so the guests can “play.” Then, put on the music and let the girls belt out their favorite songs. (T-Swift fans, this one’s for you!)
Luau
Invites: Party goers will know they’re in for a Hawaiian escape then they get an invite designed to look like an airline ticket to the Big Island.
Decor: Channel Hawaii by making simple palm trees using cardboard and green construction paper (don’t forget to make paper coconuts to complete the look). Place tiki torches around the party room along with bunches of large, tropical flowers – you can either buy some at the craft store or have your child create her own with magic markers and paper.
Food: Cut up slices of fresh or canned pineapple to make fruit skewers. Thread fruit pieces like pineapple, maraschino cherries and bananas onto small bamboo sticks (available at most large grocers). Serve ham sandwiches on King’s Hawaiian rolls. Make coconut cupcakes, cookies or a cake to finish off the meal.
Activities: Learn how to hula dance! Purchase grass skirts at a party store to hand out to each guest. Pull up a video from YouTube that offers hula dance instruction (just make sure to prescreen any video you show). You might also want to have a limbo contest and then watch Disney’s Teen Beach Movie.
Butterfly
Invites: Cut out large hearts in bright colors – those will become butterfly wings. Print or write out the party info on the inside of the heart. Place a pipe cleaner in the middle of the heart to be the butterfly’s body. Fold the heart and tuck it into envelopes to mail the invites.
Decor: Make it look like your family has been hard at work catching butterflies by taping inexpensive plastic bug catchers on the walls. Buy or have your child craft butterflies to add to the walls, too.
Food: Color-code fruit trays so it looks like a rainbow on the platter with watermelon chunks follow by diced cantaloupe, pineapple, green grapes and then blueberries. Make colorful candy bags that look like butterflies by putting the candies into plastic snack-sized bags and then scrunching them together in the middle with a wooden clothespin. Attach plastic eyes and pipe cleaner antennas.
Activities: Go on a butterfly hunt. Here’s how: before the party either purchase, or have your child create, little butterflies. Hide these throughout a room or in an area outside. Explain to guests they need to find as many butterflies as possible (you might give them a time limit like 10 minutes). The party goer that finds the most butterflies wins a prize. To settle down after the hunt, read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Zoo animals
Invites: Find zebra or other animal-print looking paper at the craft store. Print or write out all where and when the party will take place on the paper.
Decor: Turn your party room into a zoo by digging through your child’s stuffed animals for elephants, tigers, bears and other zoo animals to place around the party area. Decorate walls with zoo arrow signs that say things like “This way to the lion’s den,” or “Penguin Palace to your right.”
Food: Come up with silly names for your foods. A pretzel mix becomes “Cheetah kibble” and goldfish become “Seal snacks.” Put together cupcakes so they look like a mengarie of animals.
Activities: Hold relay races where the kids have to pretend to be different animals as they run. It’ll be fun to see them try to imagine how a hippo, penguin or walrus would race. Play pin the tail on the giraffe or let the kids make masks with construction paper and magic markers so they can turn themselves into their favorite zoo animal.
Have a son? Peek at some party theme ideas for boys, too.
This post was originally published in 2015 and is updated occasionally.
