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Here’s the thing about 14-year-olds: they know what they want. And this year, my twin girls wanted a bowling birthday party / sleepover and they wanted their primary party color to be ginger. Allllright-y then.

Bowling Party for Teen Girls by The Party Teacher

Bowling Party Invitation

Fortunately for me, I found Jula Paper Co, a fabulous printables seller on Etsy who is happy to customize party colors. She created a digital invitation for me, and sent a professionally printed banner and thank you cards. The paper quality was terrific, and not having to trim printables was a huge time saver for me.

In fact, a lot of this party was about: how I can pull this off with less effort than normal, because I still wasn’t back to 100% energy after my surgery. It turned out to be a nice lesson is keeping things simple. That also worked well with the clean, modern vibe my girls wanted to go for.

Bowling Party + Sleepover Party Schedule

Here’s how we worked the party:

  • Arrive at our house at 4:30 p.m.
  • Drop off sleeping bags, etc., then pile into our cars by 4:45 to drive to the bowling alley.
  • Bowl from 5 to 6ish, and eat pizza at the bowling alley.
  • Back to our house for cake and Happy Birthday singing.
  • Sleepover with pick-up at 10 a.m. the next day.

I knew I wasn’t up for transporting a party to a location this year, but if you want to see a stunning at-the-bowing-alley party, check out this one from Anders Ruff.

Having the dessert table at home allowed me to set up for the party as I had time and energy. I decorated just three areas: the dining room, a bar cart for late night snacks in the living room, and the kitchen table for breakfast.

Teen Girl Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - at the bowling alley 1
Teen Girl Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - bowling shoes

Bowling Party Dining Table

My trick of using Ikea stools to fit more girls around our dining room table just barely worked this year. All these girls are now in teenager bodies — they’re bigger! I don’t know how I’ll fit them in next year.

I dressed the table with a white tablecloth and topped it with a table runner made out of ginger-colored fabric (just $3/yard at WalMart). I used the same combo on the sideboard that served as our dessert table.

Bowling Party Place Settings

I used white plastic plates, gold plastic forks and gold/white striped paper napkins (gasp! I almost never use plastic or paper place settings). I’m telling you: if there was a easy route, I took it for this party. But, I loved how the combo turned out.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - dining table
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - place setting

For water bottles, I skipped bottle wrappers (I was a rebel, ya’ll!) and washi taped on a peach striped straw. The washi tape didn’t want to hold, so I secured each end with a dot of glue.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - water bottle with peach straw gold washi tape

Bowling Party Favors

At each place setting, I added a party favor. We picked hand lotion from Bath and Body Works, thinking that after bowling, everyone would want to wash up and pamper their hands.

I found clear plastic macaron boxes and removed the inside part that would be fitted to the macarons. In went the hand lotion and a selection of Lindt chocolates. The thank you tags were attached with more gold glitter washi tape.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - party favor and water bottle
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - hand lotion party favor

Bowling Party Centerpieces

I have more fun designing party table centerpieces! I used a combination of elements here: two white floral arrangements, three vintage bowling trophies, and 7 or 8 faux bowling ball trophies that I made using supplies I had on hand.

The florals were white hydrangeas and roses, in a loose but full arrangement with stems showing through the clear glass vase. In all honesty, I had these made at Kroger, which usually works out well for me. But despite showing the florist a photo and picking out the flowers I wanted, the end result was not right at all. She had a block of floral foam showing through the glass vase and the arrangement was too high off the top of the vase.

I couldn’t help but be disappointed, so I nicely asked for them to be remade, and another florist popped out that foam, grabbed clean vases, trimmed the stems, added more roses, and was SUPER nice about it all.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - use two floral arrangements to fill your table

Bowling Ball Mini Trophies

For my faux trophies, I’ll add a tutorial, but basically, I marbleized smooth styrofoam balls, then hot glued them to inexpensive loving cups left over from my Kentucky Derby-inspired graduation party. I added three white circles to each one to look like the holes in a bowling ball.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - DIY bowling trophy

Vintage Bowling Trophies

I wish I could say that I scoured Goodwill until I found the perfect vintage trophies featuring women bowlers, but nope. I ordered them off Ebay and Etsy and just closed my eyes about the shipping costs. (Those puppies are heavy!) The center trophy was the tallest, and the two on either side of it were a few inches shorter.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - antique bowling trophy
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - vintage bowling trophy

Bowling Party Dessert Table

The dessert table was fun to design. I started with my trick of using cheap white curtains to hide my enormous mirror.

Then I added a DIY balloon garland. Baby A helped with balloon blowing up and it really took no time to assemble. I used a combination of balloons from Shop Sweet Lulu and some of my own. The garland is affixed to the wall using command strips and 1/8th inch grosgrain ribbon.

Here’s a balloon garland tutorial.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - dessert table 2
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - balloon garland over dessert table

I kept the serving pieces all white to support our color scheme. On the table, I added a small, natural wood bowling pin set as a nod to our theme while still keeping the dessert table a little more sophisticated than the average bowling party. Across the front of the table, I hung the Happy Birthday banner.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - add bowling pins to your dessert table
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - dessert table
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - dessert table with balloon garland

Bowling Party Marbleized Cake

The cake was draped with marbleized fondant in our party colors to look like a bowling ball.

I made the paper pins and bowling ball topper … and then SET IT ON FIRE when lighting birthday candles. Yes, indeed-y. We all just FROZE. And then I snapped to, blew out all their birthday candles (and the topper) and we did not try candles again.

Still not quite sure how I did that, but lesson learned: remove paper toppers BEFORE lighting candles.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - cake with bowling topper

Bowling Party Desserts Menu

Our other dessert table treats included:

  • Bowling ball and bowling pin sugar cookies from my favorite baker, Guilty Confections
  • Bowling pin pretzel sticks
  • Bowling ball chocolate covered Oreos
  • Nutella marshmallows and salted caramel marshmallows from Viveltre. They were soooo good. I might have eaten more than my share.
  • Meringue cookies
  • Vanilla ice cream
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - bowling pin cookies bowling ball cookies
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - bowling sugar cookies
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - chocolate covered pretzels and Oreos
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - vanilla meringue cookies
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - handmade marshmallows

Sleepover Late Night Snacks

Of course, the little pink bar cart had to make an appearance. I tied giant gold 14 balloons to the cart, and of course, getting them to face the same direction at the same time was nearly impossible because … balloons move.

The main thing about the bar cart was to satisfy the girls’ munchies while they stayed up late and watched movies and did nails and jabbered.

I found a huge glass candy jar at WalMart and we used that to hold Smart Food movie-style popcorn. Everyone had a clear plastic container they could use to hold their popcorn. I love the little scalloped edge on the popcorn containers. On the bottom shelf, I had a variety of Izzes.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - sleepover bar cart
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - popcorn for the sleepover
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - Izze soda on bar cart for sleepover

Self-Serve Sleepover Breakfast

I set up most of the breakfast table after the girls were done with desserts and present opening. In the morning, all I had to do was put out donuts and strawberries.

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - sleepover breakfast

I used my Johnson Brothers ironstone for breakfast, plus more of the gold plastic flatware. I found the entire set of ironstone dishes in an antique mall before the girls’ Vintage Tea Party way back when. And I still can’t believe I only paid $20 for the set!

Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - slumber party breakfast
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - sleepover breakfast
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - gold plastic forks

Our breakfast options included:

  • Cheerios for the easy to please
  • Donuts and donut holes – we picked these out the day before
  • Strawberries
  • Cuties
  • Mocha and vanilla Frappuccinos as a special treat
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - serve cereal in an apothecary jar
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - fresh strawberries for breakfast
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - donuts
Teen Girls Bowling Party by The Party Teacher - donuts for breakfast

My husband thought I was crazy for hosting such a big sleepover, but having twins means having lots of friends. It all went really well with no drama — what a great group of girls! Have you hosted a big sleepover before ? Any tips?

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TPT 14 Party Planning Cheat Sheets 11-23-1

Party planning should be fun— not stressful!

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TPT 14 Party Planning Cheat Sheets 11-23-1

Don't miss my FREE Party Planning Cheat Sheets!

Don't miss my FREE party planning cheat sheets.

These are the exact 14 worksheets I use to plan all my parties!

Have fun planning your party (and stop worrying about what you're forgetting).

Plus, you'll get all the latest parties, tutorials, and discounts from The Party Teacher.

You have successfully subscribed! Thanks for joining the party!