Karaoke Star Party -7yr- Sunglasses & Boas

Because my daughter loves to sing, we decided on a karaoke party for her 7th birthday. 

For the invitations, I bought karaoke CD's that had both the demonstration and karaoke versions on the CD.  I let my daughter choose 10 of her favorites, and burned the demonstration version only so the girls could practice prior to the party.  The songs were mainly from High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and a couple of Disney songs.  I got a cheap CD labeling kit ($6) and labeled them, You can be a star!" with the titles of the songs on them as well.  I put them in CD cases ($3.99)and printed the invitation time date and place with the theme of the party as well on the outside.  We hand delivered these as mailing them would be too expensive.  This really got the girls geared up for the party.

For the party: I rented a stage from a rental center here which only cost me $30.  We cleared out our living room of all the furniture and set the stage up here.  Because my husband has some DJ equipment we used his speakers and lights to "set the stage" but you could easily do without this if you have a karaoke machine available.   I bought some really cool hanging swirly stars which hung from the ceiling and put Christmas lights all around the room- anywhere they would stand still!  We draped them around the ficas trees drapes mantel and ceiling fan! (but be sure to tell them not to turn it on!)  I also found some giant stars from a craft store that I used as a template and cut out 10 of these after tracing them onto silver poster-board.  We hung these up with tape on the walls.  

As for the goodies I purchased cookies in the shape of stars from a local bakery but you could easily make these yourself to save some cash!  We also had sandwiches cut into the star shapes chips and punch.

Once the girls got to the party we let them choose from a vast array of fun dress-up clothes.  I went to a used clothing store and it was "fill a bag for $5 so anything I could find that was dressy and sparkly I put in the bag.  The girls had a blast going through the clothes and picking out their outfit.  Most chose to simply drape the clothes over their existing outfit.   We also added a little bit of make-up to whoever wanted it but be sure to clear it with the parents first.  We did eye-shadow blush and lip gloss only! 

The girls loved this part- definitely a treat! We had feather boas for each of the girls purchased for $1 each at a discount store and sparkly necklaces we purchased from a party store. (30 for $5)  They also each got a pair of $1 sunglasses.  They wore them during the party and took them home as party favors. After getting dressed they each made their own "play" microphone.  I purchased 2 inch foam balls from a craft store (around $2 for 6)and spray-painted them silver. 

We pushed them into some leftover pvc pipe we had laying around and cut into 6 inch sticks.  We also spray-painted these.  I had stickers for the girls to decorate these with and some shiny permanent markers.  They also had to write their name on these as to avoid confusion.

The girls took turns on the real microphone while me and my husband announced them by name.  It worked out well to have the "fake" mics because little 7 year olds don't have a lot of patience.  The girls who were not on stage danced around and pretended to sing while the "real" singer was on stage.  They all seemed to want to sing the same 3 songs but this made it silly and fun by the end of the night. 

For games- once everyone had a turn on the stage (who wanted it) we had a "dance-off."  I played a fun little hip-hop song and we all danced around crazy.  This got the energy going and even though there wasn't a true "winner" it gave me time to get the gifts ready to be opened.  I wanted to get it out of the way so they could sing until the parents started arriving. Don't spend a lot of time and money on the food- the girls will be more interested in becoming a star than eating! We took a lot of pictures of the event and for the thank-you cards we included a picture of their daughter singing on stage.  The parents loved this extra touch! "