The Party's On!

• Pie Supper - Invitations are circles of tan card stock cut into pie-shaped wedges. With dark brown paint, make a fluted edge on each "crust". With scissors, make slits to let "steam" escape. Write time and place on reverse side of wedge. Pin each wedge to small paper plate. Of course the menu is pie, and have a spy, so that the one eating the most wins a prize.
• Pancake Parade - Great after a slumber party. Get up, you sleepyheads; this is a morning party. If you perfer, make it late a late evening affair. Whatever the hour, the party's in the kitchen. For invitations, send miniature skillets, with a tag attached stating details.(Or use round coasters to resemble pancakes, and write details on them. Borrow extra griddles so that the pancake flipper can keep up with the demand. Have several types of pancakes: banana, pecan, buckwheat & etc. Different types of syrup: maple, strawberry, raspberry & etc. Whipped cream for topping. Hot cocoa.
• Magazine Party - Here's a party with it's own entertainment. Guests come dressed as title of a favorite magazine; a prize for best one. For invitations, just paste front cover of a magazine onto piece of white paper; with marker write details on reverse side.(or cut each of 8 magazine covers (of same size) into 8 squares. Onto each piece of white paper, paste a square from each magazine.) Pin magazine covers to tablecloth. For refreshments, reproducing a tempting dish shown in a magazine color photograph. For games: Unscramble Mixed-Up magazine titles. Identify Trademarks - Cut 25 trademarks from magazines, paste on cardboard, then number 1 to 25. Give a sheet of paper & pencil to each quest. Ask guests to number paper 1-25. Show trademarks, one by one; let them jot down manufacturer beside correct number. Prize goes to highest score.
• You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine - This is an idea for an after-movie snack. The gang splits up, and each person goes to the movie he'd like to see most. About 11 P.M. everyone meets at your place for: Soup & Blockbusters (Sandwiches).
• On-the-Go Party - This is a co-operative affair. Everyone brings a prearranged fee and meets downtown. Hostess has planned two or three events--roller skating, a ride on a bus the gang doesn't usually travel on, ping-pong or darts in somebody's basement, Pop and Pizza at Pizza Piazazz, (Choose events to suit your locality.) Nobody knows plan of events except host or hostess.
• Doughnut-Dunking Time - This party idea was borrowed and adapted from New Orleans. First serve "poor boy" sandwiches with coffee or hot cocoa. Then bring in a bowl of doughnuts--packaged ones, reheat in oven or automatic deep-fat-frying kettle. Have wooden bowls of granulated sugar--one for each guest or two. Everyone dunks his hot doughnuts in the sugar, a la The morning Coffee House in New Orleans French Market. And, of course, replenish the coffee or hot cocoa.
• Victorian Formal Dance at Home - Have guests come dressed in Victorian Clothing. The music is the most important item in your budget. Skimp on everything but that. Let the invitations be worded formally, but not necessarily printed. Decorations can be the same as those listed in the Sweet Sixteen Party except use a Victorian Design wallpaper to make fans. Let younger brothers & sisters open the door and attend your cloakroom. You and Mother greet the guests. When the guests arrive welcome them with soft background music and a full punch bowl to be available throughout the evening. Have a buffet supper at midnight, perhaps. Remember that gentleman serve ladies. Little extras: good ventilation, good lighting, a dressing room for girls complete with powder puffs, and one for fellows with a mirror to straighten their ties. Plan on a Paul Jones very early in the evening plus novelty dances. Father's responsibility is to dance with the ladies that haven't been asked, or to suggest that a nearby gentleman do so.
• "This is Your Life" Party - A party for a special friend of long standing, who is moving away or going to college. Make a recording, "This Is Your Life," complete with voices of friends, school-teachers, and so forth. Let the school song be the musical background. Visit our graduation ideas page for details on having a "This is Your Life" Party.
• House-to-House Party - A progressive party where a food course is consumed at each house visited.
• Misfit Party - Dress: Wear combinations of clothing ordinarily not worn, as bathing suit with furs. Give prize to the most original outfit.
• Platter Dance - Blast from the past! Hang up a few dozen records (visit an antique store or make from back poster board)--on walls of your party room. Serve: cola drinks, platter cookies. Frost round cookies with chocolate frosting, with circle of white in the center. With cake decorator, print name of "record" on each. Play 50s music for dancing. Visit our 50s theme page for other decorations and party items.

Return to Top

Celebrate a sixteenth birthday with this coming-out party. Make it sweet, not to sophisticated. Sixteen guests is perfect. 

For invitation send a red rose; a little card giving details, tied to stem. 

Cover table in red top with red net, gather each corner with a red ribbon bow. Tuck in roses. Accordian fold napkins as fans and tuck in roses.  Add the ease and convenience of Sweet Sixteen paper goods to your party. They allow you to save time and money while adding color and excitement to your table. 

Decorate using roses & fans. Make fans from paper (wallpaper works great) by accordian pleating paper, turn up about 1/3 at bottom and tie with red ribbon. Tuck in a few red roses. Tack up here and there, and everywhere in party room. 

Menu: Strawberry Ice Cream, Heart Shaped Sandwiches, Pink-frosted cupcakes, covered with coconut ( Or, make a big cake, surround with a garland of roses, top it with a doll whose dress is identical with that of the guest of honor, Miss Sweet Sixteen. 

As soon as guests arrive greet them with a full punch bowl, soft background music. 

Prizes for novelty dances can be anything sweet--a box of candy, a box of cookies. Visit our blinking roses page for more decorations & favors.

Have a great party!

Return to Top

Paul Jones - Props: A whistle. Boys join hands and form a large circle. Girls form a smaller circle inside large one. Hostess blows whistle, then music begins and boys circle to right; girls circle to the left, until whistle blows again. Then music stops and boy takes girl nearest to him for his partner for next dance.

Cinderella - Each girl removes one shoe and places it in a pile in the center of the room. When music starts, each boy takes a shoe, finds its owner, and dances with her.

Date Card - Props: prepare a card for each guest, with as many numbered lines as there will be couple events during the evening. The cards are distributed, and boys are told to write a different girl's name on each line, and to have her enter his name on the corresponding space on her card. When partners are needed, the number to be used is announced and the guests are requested to find the person whose name is written opposite this number on their card.

Return to Top

Dancing Chairs (like musical chairs) - Props: Music for dancing. Chairs--two less than number of players--placed about dance floor in pairs. Pair off players in couples. Then they rush toward chairs and sit. The couple left standing is eliminated. (There is one rule: Couples must stay together. Only when both reach the chairs may they sit).Game continues, with two chairs taken away and one couple eliminated, every time music starts.

Wallflower Waltz (or Snowball) - Get one couple to start dancing. When music stops, the partners separate, go where guests are congregated, and each takes a new partner. (Make it a rule that any person who refuses the invitation to dance must pay a forfeit.) When original couple has danced awhile with their new partners, stop music. All separate again, and find other partners; soon all will be dancing.

Follow-the-Leader - Couples line up behind a lead couple. Whatever the lead couple does, rest must duplicate. Here are three suggestions: Form a conga line, and zigzag back and forth. Stand side-by-side and skate across the floor, accompanied by music. Two couples form a circle, locking arms, then dance.

Fortune Dance - Props: Balloon Drop, Slips of paper with different fortunes written on them. ("You will be lucky in love," "You will be wealthy and wise," etc. And on some say "Lucky you wins a prize.") In each balloon (enough for all), insert one of the slips, then blow it up and tie it. Release balloons during a dance. Let guests do what comes naturally---break the balloons. Guest who get the "Lucky you wins a prize" fortune, gets a prize.

Lucky Spot Dance - Props: Pencil & piece of paper. At the beginning of the dance, the hostess decides on a spot on the floor which will be "lucky" and notes same on a slip of paper. When dance ends, everyone holds their position. The hostess reveals the lucky spot by reading it from the slip of paper. The couple or individual standing on or nearest to the lucky spot wins a prize. (For large group choose several lucky spots.)

Extra Boy or Girl Dance - Have couples start dancing. Blindfold extra guest and let him/her grope for a partner. Whichever couple he/she touches, he/she may cut in on. The one who had been dancing is next to be blindfolded.

Return to Top