American Idol -10yr- Positive Comments Only

AMERICAN IDOL PARTY  For my daughter's 10th birthday, we had an American Idol party, which is basically a kareoke party.

INVITATION: We used images of the judges from the American Idol website. On the front cover we put a picture of the judges with a voice bubble that said "Are you the next American Idol?" Inside it said "Come and Find Out at Tristin's 10th Birthday Party" with all the necessary information (date, time, place, RSVP). We also wrote "pop star attire encouraged."

DECORATIONS: we found paper goods that looked like records. For the stage we printed out multiple copies of the American Idol logo and pinned them together for a backdrop, surrounded by rope lighting. You could build a stage but luckily our patio is raised and we used it for the stage. Rent or buy a Kareoke machine with your child's favorite pop songs (we also rented a Beattles CD since the kids had sang them at their school Spring concert and we knew they were familiar with them)

THE PARTY: as the girls arrived we had stick on jewels and colored glitter hair spray. Each girl was given a list of songs to chose from and encouraged to sing alone. Some wanted to sing in groups which we said was OK but we put them last and as their turn drew closer they decided to sing alone after all. We rotated the girls from the audience (where they munched on chips, pretzels, etc.), to the judging table (two girls were instructed to give only positive comments while the third girl was assigned only negative comments like Simon would give -- that was pathetic, you are the world's worst singer), to the stage.

We took pictures of each girl as they sang. I recommend a small group of no more than 12 girls or the group may not have the patience to sit through everyone's songs. At the end, we had each girl vote on an American Idol (but excluded the birthday girl).

While the girls ate their pizza (become some of them were vegetarians) we tabulated the votes and announced the winner after the birthday cake. The winner got a certificate, which we made on the computer, declaring them as the American Idol.

GOODY BAGS: we gave out gift certificates to Clair's, an accessory store carrying trendy items.

THANK YOU NOTES: we made a collage of the pictures of all the girls singing, with our thank you on the inside.