Teen Birthday Ideas

Heather,

Try a luau... Its fun and most of the time can be done pretty cheaply. You could even have the kids make their own leighs out of colored popcorn or construction paper flowers...

Granted that might not be 'cool' for a 13 year old. Party city has an extensive collection of this stuff...

Nik

Make-up party! Have a few of her close friends over to do homemade facials, pedicures, manicures, and make-up. Buy a bunch of teeny magazines and have them spend the night. You can go online to find homemade facial recipes using household products (think yogurt and cucumbers). Cheap make-up and polish at the dollar store and virgin mixed drinks with little umbrellas. A perfect way to ring in being a teenager.

Maybe she could help with the planning. If you give her an overall birthday budget she is old enough that she could figure out how much it would cost to do different kinds of parties.

Another idea about the overall cost--when I was a kid our parents gave us the choice between a higher-priced present and a simple party (2 or 3 friends) and a lower-priced present with a bigger party. We almost invariably picked the bigger present and the smaller party and this was probably cheaper overall.

A couple of ideas that would be pretty inexpensive: 1) tie-dye party. If you know how to tie-dye or know someone who does and can demonstrate a few techniques, this can be a lot of fun. You can get cotton t-shirts pretty cheap @ craft stores (natural fibers dye a lot easier than synthetics) or have kids bring their own stuff to dye but be prepared for someone to bring their boxer shorts!
2) scavenger hunt party, divide the kids up into teams. You will have to recruit other parents to drive if you are in an area they need to drive around to collect the items. This can be especially fun if they have to collect photos (either polaroid or digital so you can all see the "evidence" at the end of the hunt).
3) a field trip to somewhere she's interested in. Petco or the zoo has behind-the-scenes tours if she is interested in animals. Places like the planetarium or a TV station will do tours. This one is a little bit geeky, but I think there is a little bit of a geek in all of us, it just depends on how comfortable she is with her inner geek! :)

Hi Heather,
My daughter is now 19 yrs. old, but one of her favorite B-Day party ideas when she was younger (she asked for this every year for about 3-4 years in a row), was to have just a few of her very best girlfriends spend the night with her at a hotel. (Of course I stayed too.) We stayed at a hotel with an indoor pool because my daughter's birthday was in December. She and I checked in early and decorated the room a little, brought videos, games, kareoke, etc. We ordered pizza and had cake and ice cream. (The front desk kept the ice cream frozen for us till we were ready for it.) There were usually no more than 4-5 girls. They played games, sang & danced, and swam all afternoon and early in the evening, and when it got later, they watched movies to keep the noise level down a bit. The hotel had a continental breakfast so when the girls got up in the morning they ate well and I didn't have to cook! Their parents picked them up about an hour before check-out time and that gave us time to gather our stuff and check out. (I loved it because it was minimal set up and clean up!)The girls all loved the idea of being in the hotel - a "mini-vacation" where they had a variety of activities and could stay up as long as they wanted to. There are several hotels with reasonable rates and complimentary continental breakfast - we used the Comfort Suites. If you check well in advance, you can sometimes find hotel coupons, special room rates, etc. Good luck and have fun!

What about a craft party where they make something inexpensive?? Like a foam sign for their bedroom door and something else like a picture frame? Michael's has foam kits and inexpensive frames that can then be painted with those 50cent acrylic paints... And then they could decorate the frames with more foam sticker shapes and sequins, beads, or whatever you want to buy for them.

good luck!
C.

First sit down with her to find out what "different" means to her. Get real ideas from her. If you do not find out what she wnats you could spend way more and do more then she expects. Also, if she ahs been watching some of the reality birthday shows she could have unreal expectations for your financial situation and no matter what you do - it may not be enough.

Swim party
WaterWorld
Theme party
SURPRISE PARTY contact her closest friends to help plan--they'll know exactly what to do and usually they don't think nearly as big as we do. If so, tell them it has to be cheap but awesome!

She could have a bowling party or a costume party. Maybe she would also like roller skating too? It's hard as they get older to have parties.She could take a few friends to the movies as well.Hope that helps

when one of my friends turned 15 we had a surprise luao (sp?) and she loved it, they had an above ground pool, not big, but nice to cool off in. I remember going on retreats in hotel rooms with girlfriends from church and that was always a blast. You could taker her and a few friends out to dinner and a movie, her choice...then come back home and they can do spa treatments on eachother, you can buy the kits pretty cheap at walmart, while they do their giggling. Another fun idea is to buy a couple disposable cameras and a photo album so they can take pics and she can have them developed and then always remember the bday when she became a teenager. Kind of a way to end childhood, and start her teen years. That's something I always treasure are the pics from all the parties we had as kids/teens. Hope that helps.

I would say maybe invite a few of her friends to join you at one of the resorts that has the great summer deals. It's a like a deluxe slumber party. They could bring along stuff to do spa time after the pool, you can eat out at the resort, they can swim...and you can relax and lay by the pool. There are some great deals going on right now. Hope this helps. Also, there are lots of party places and more ideas on my website. Many are geared towards smaller children, but you might find something. http://www.azactivekids.com

on my 13th bday - i had a hotel party, just
a few girls but it had a pool. the pointe
has some good deals going on right now -
everyone brings snacks and sodie - swim for
free - bring stuff for diva day spa girlie items..
works pretty good -

me: married, working mother of plenty, pregnant with 1 due in december...

my 17 yr old son and his high school friends have a garage band and they recently did a birthday party for a 14 yr old. the mom paid them $100 for 4 hrs of music. their repertoire isnt extensive so they took their amplifiers and equipment and they played for a couple of hours and then they played music dj style. they did this in a garage. the mom made ahuge pan of lasagne and salad and they all ate. the little girl felt like a princess because she had a real band. the kids had a lot of fun. you could try somethng like this. go to your local high school and recruit some of these kids. they knwo the kind of music and maybe make a cheap dinner or snacks. recruit her best friends to make a birthday cake or make it yourself and invite them over to decorate the cake and the garage for the party.

The most important thing, in my opinion is to make her feel special. 13 is a special age especially for a girl. what about a pool party? If you dont have a pool a local public pool may give you a group rate for a birthday party and even section off a special area for you and guests. if that is too expensive maybe you could do a sleepover party and make like a goody bag for each guest including a brush, toothbrush, nail polish, lotion and whatever other cute things you can find at the dollar store. whatever you do, have a great time, she will only turn 13 once.

How about a treasure hunt? I sent my daughter and her friends all around town one time. They still talk about it.