This past weekend, I had the privilege of helping my friend Elizabeth host a girls rule slumber party for her daughter Andrea’s seventh birthday. We had a budget of $200 that we came close to sticking to, and we created a party that Andrea said was her best birthday ever — mission accomplished! (And don’t you just have to love a child who spontaneously says “thank you”?)

I created Double the Fun Parties to help moms throw at-home parties for their kids. That’s it. Not necessarily to make the most over-the-top parties, but rather to design manageable events that — most importantly — make your child happy and fit in your budget. Your party should be what you need it to be.

Andrea loves purple, so we choose a color scheme of purple, lavender, yellow and spring green. We talked with her about the activities she wanted, and kept to pretty traditional slumber party lines. (The classics are classics for a reason.) We decorated flip flops with polka dot grosgrain ribbon, painted nails, danced, played Twister and watched movies. We also gave the girls a few disposable cameras and I can’t wait to see those results.

Our invitations and other printables were created by Donna of Party Printables Plus, who very kindly customized her colors for us.

The dessert table included gumballs, Sixlets, chocolate drizzled popcorn, regular popcorn, rock candy and chocolate cupcakes. The cupcakes were embellished with fondant toppers by Edible Details — the sleeping bags were very popular! Our cake (by Scrumdiddlyumptious Bakery) looked exactly like fuzzy bedroom slippers with size 7 (for Andrea’s age) on the inner sole.

Favors were packed in 99 cent buckets with each girl’s name written in paint pen. They took home their flip flops, candy from the dessert table and a CD that Elizabeth made.

In the morning, the girls chose from three types of cereal, fresh fruit, and donut holes, which were made about 100 times more fun by putting them on popsicle sticks.

If you’ve thought that you couldn’t host a party at home, that you wouldn’t know where to start, that it would cost too much … just remember this event. You can completely do this.

Vendor Credits

• Printables: Party Printables Plus
• Cupcake toppers: Edible Details
• Slipper cake: Scrumdiddlyumptious Bakery