How to throw a Project Runway party for your pre-teen girl

Christina has become friends with my friend's niece who is visiting until just next Tues., so we threw together a birthday bash for Christina so that her new friend, Meg could be included.  SO glad we did...sometimes a time crunch increases creative adrenaline.  We did a lot, but this theme can be kicked up another notch or two or ten, or it can be successfully pulled off in a much more simple way.  In our case, we came up with the theme: Project Runway on Tuesday and pulled this off 3 days later.  We planned for 3 hours of girly crafts & silliness, and had to call parents to ask for another hour of play time (could have gone on even longer).....the girls had a BLAST!

Prep:

I enlisted the help of all of my girls to draw as many fashion sketches as possible using Christina's sketch kit.  We taped these to the wall like a design studio.

I brought a garment rack up from the play room and collected clothes to hang on display, like you would see back stage at a fashion show.

Decide on a project or projects to be incorporated into the culminating catwalk.  We did three: painted t-shirts, decorated flip flops, and made hair accessories.  Later this week I'll post tutorials.  The shirts were still drying by the time we did the runway, and the girls wanted to wear these pink plastic heels instead of flip-flops for the runway, so the only craft that made it to the runway was the clippies.  Once you figure out what crafts you'll do, gather ALL the supplies and tools needed for the crafts and organize them in your decor, again going for the design studio look.

The birthday girl shrine:)....I brought Christina's bulletin board into the party decor and collected various pics of her to have on display, and added her name blocks as well to personalize things a bit.

Gather more fun dresses- I normally do NOT have pink velvety curtains in my DR and FR, but I borrowed Grace and Caroline's panels for the party...gotta play up the theme!  I hung more sequiny, fur trimmed, sparkly clothes from the curtain rods, again going for the studio look.

Food-  I thought 3 peas would be funny, but inappropriate...Christina opted for pizza for dinner and individual mini cakes (tins found at Michael's) and ice-cream for dessert.

Music- Christina and Wayne collaborated making a party appropriate playlist.  Songs included:

"Respect" - Aretha Franklin

"Birthday"

"Can't Buy me Love"

"Twist and Shout"- Beatles

"We Got the Beat"- Go-Go's

"Swimming Pool" - Submarines

"SOS"

"Burnin' Up"- Jonas Brothers

"Leave it all to Me"- Miranda Cosgrove (from iCarly)

Party favor bags- We found 1.99 fun looking tote bags at Christmas Tree Shop and used them to store runway supplies, take home gifts (lip gloss, bracelet & necklace), and crafts (flip-flops & finished clippies).

Now for the party low-down....

Guests arrive and sign birthday poster.

Paint t-shirts- hang them to dry

Eat pizza

Decorate flip-flops

Make hair accessories

Runway: The girls sat down on the runway, opened their bags and were instructed to put everything on in their bags for their first walk down the catwalk.  We cranked up the music and photographed them strutting down the runway.

Cake and ice cream- We opened presents while eating

Adios!

It was super hard narrowing down pictures for the slideshow, but here's a glimpse at Christina's Project Runway party....

PS...this could be tailored for teaching Activity Days or Young Women at church by making it modesty-related or making the most of basics (make several different looks out of one dress or a white shirt and khakis, etc.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NINA!