If you’re looking for tween girl birthday party ideas or teen girl birthday party ideas that are actually fun, age-appropriate, and won’t make your daughter roll her eyes, you’re in the right place. After planning birthday parties for two girls who are quickly leaving the little-kid years behind, I’ve learned that finding the sweet spot between “too little kid” and “too grown up” can be a challenge. So let’s dive into all of the tween/teen girl birthday party ideas! And because it’s me and we know I’m a little extra, I also include party favor/food ideas too!
Tween Girl Parties for the active kid:
You don’t have to have a tomboy to have a tween/teen who loves active parties. My youngest daughter, Winnie still runs everywhere she goes versus walking. She is extremely active and is always enrolled in one to two sports as well as choir and band year-round. Because of that, she leans towards parties that revolve around physical activity.
Obstacle Course or Ninja Warrior Course:
When Winnie turned nine, we had her birthday party at a ninja warrior course! If you’re local in Castle Rock, we went to Ninja Intensity and had a great experience! Her party had 10 kids at it, and the package was $340 which included: Two hours of gym time with only her birthday group allowed in the gym, a party room, set-up and clean-up of the venue, plastic and paper goods for the food, bracelets for every kid, a water bottle for Winnie, and they allowed us to bring in our own food. We ordered pizza and had it delivered to the gym so the kids could eat after wearing themselves out.
For Winnie’s party favors, I went easy-as-fuck. I bought this ninja party favor pack that included enough crap for 12 kids.
Also, up until this post, I’ve always sent out hand-written birthday invites, because apparently in my soul, I am 100 years old. So for this party, I sent out these festive, girly ninja invites. It included the favor bag, a ninja belt, stamps, pens, pencils, erasers, bracelets, notebooks, and keychains and was dirt-cheap.
Trampoline Park:
Another great tween girl birthday party idea for active girls is a trampoline park. For Winnie’s 10th birthday, she chose Urban Air. We had 12 kids attending so we did the “Ultimate” Party package which was $299 for 10 kids. (We paid the extra $19.99 per kid for the extra two kids we had.) The ultimate package included 1 hour and 15 minutes of time to jump on the trampolines, climb the rock wall, use the zipline, play on a warrior course, basketball, rope course, battle beam, and more! Literally the only thing it didn’t include were go-karts.
It was an extra $50 to have a party room, but with that room came a party attendant who set up the room, provided the tablecloths, socks for every kid, plates, napkins and cutlery, two large pizzas, bottled waters, and they got all the food and drinks brought in. Since I am a firm believer that you also feed the parents when asking them to bring their kids to parties, I also ordered extra pizza. Pitchers of soda and lemonade are extra, but when you order one pitcher, you get a refill for free. The only outside food Urban Air lets you bring in is your birthday cake! So I ordered Winnie one from King Soopers and called it a day!
Her party favors had nothing to do with a trampoline park or obstacle course. She is obsessed with axolotls, so once again, I went easy with party favors. So I got this party favor pack off Amazon and then we added in some axolotl squishy toys and axolotl pencil toppers.
Swimming Pool/Water Park:
I love a good pool party. And it’s such an easy tween girl birthday party idea! We are fortunate enough to have a great neighborhood pool that is included in our HOA fees. So for my oldest daughter, Lila’s party, we headed to the pool! If you’re like us and have a neighborhood pool, this is also wonderful because it’s “free.” (Kids don’t give a fuck that your HOA dues cover the cost of maintaining said pool.) If you don’t have a pool nearby, I also love just using the local rec-center’s pool!
Since Lila’s party didn’t cost us anything, she asked that we do nicer party favors, and I was all for it. To go with the pool theme, I got these mini flamingo drink floats and filled them with all sorts of good shit. I got a pack of solo cups and filled them with: birthday cake lip balm, starface lip balm, hand cream, sheet masks, eye masks, and water bottle stickers. Hot Tip: Ulta puts their “Sweet & Shimmer” line on sale a lot. And they always have cute teen prints to their cosmetics in that line. Everything I got in the middle picture below was $2 per item!
What I didn’t intend to happen at my daughter’s pool party was a random rainstorm. So we had to leave the pool and head to our house for some Chick-Fil-A and cake a little earlier than expected. Luckily I had checked the forecast that morning and when I saw impending rain, I ran to Target for a back-up plan. I got each girl a spa headband, foot mask, sheet mask, and eye patches and they got to pamper themselves after they had lunch. So if your pool party is outdoors and you live in a state like Colorado, have a back-up plan!
Lila actually wants to do the same thing for her 13th birthday only she has even bougier favors since she invited less kids. This year, we did clear cosmetic cases and got stick-on monogram patches to personalize them. Then we tossed in: Tree hut sugar scrub, a claw clip, chap stick, hand cream, nail files, smiley face shower steamers, watermelon sheet masks, and stuffed bear keychains. And to really make it official, we got each girl a pool float too. I told Lila, I think we spent more on favors than people spend on gifts. But that is what the girl wanted!
You don’t have to go this bougie! An absolutely perfect and inexpensive party favor for a pool party is just a regular ol’ innertube! The ones I got for Lila’s party were on sale at Target at the end of swim season for $2.00 each!
Roller Skating Party:
Put your hair up in a scrunchie and get those skates on girl. Because another hit for a tween girl birthday party is to go roller skating! We have an indoor rink nearby that I used to go to all the time as a kid. So I was thrilled when Winnie wanted one of her parties at Skate City. For $179 currently, you can book a birthday party here for 2 hours of skating for 12 kids. The birthday girl also gets a free pair of roller skates worth around $75! She also gets $20 in game play. The $199 covers ice cream and drinks for each kid, but you can add 3 pizzas to it for $49 to feed them all too.
For the girl who isn’t as sporty or active:
Throw a unique house party:
My oldest loves a house party. So if your tween/teen is of the less-adventurous persuasion, this is for you. You can throw a tween girl birthday party on a budget. Order some pizza or subway, get a cake, and just let the kids play! If your child has a cold-weather birthday, you can get creative and hire a face painter. Some companies even come set up little tents/air mattresses for slumber parties. Here are ways I upped the ante with our basic house parties.
Hire a Dessert Truck:
Want to make your daughter’s birthday party feel extra special without spending the entire day making food? Hire a dessert truck! For a couple different parties, I’ve hired Kona Ice to come serve shave ice. They pull up to your house at the scheduled time and you get 30 minutes to have every kid make their own snow cone. (I always have them come the last 30 minutes of the party to show kids we are winding down.) If you don’t have something like Kona Ice in your area, I’ve seen other types of food and drink trucks you can hire too! Just google “dessert trucks for hire near me.”
Hire a face painter:
One year, we had a face painter come to the house! I found our face painter by going into my local neighborhood Facebook page and asking if any teens wanted to make some money painting faces! She ended up charging me $70 for an hour of paint time. The kids who weren’t getting their faces painted got to run amuck or play yard games while they waited their turn. If this leans too little-kid though, I have even more ideas below on how to elevate a tween/teen house party.
Have a spa party:
This is such a great teen one since they’re unlike us millennials and have started to take care of their skin at a young age. You can use the ideas I listed above on what I got for Lila’s pool day when the weather started to turn. If I were doing just a spa party, I’d set out self-standing makeup mirrors, bowls of warm water, wash cloths, spa headbands, mud masks, sheet masks, and lip balm. Once they’re done pampering themselves, wipe out the bowls and let them keep them to hold their shit in them!
Then you could also do a nail polish station where they paint nails. Or, get really extra and have a hair tinsel station where they help each other add some tinsel to their hair. My younger daughter is all about hair tinsel and I got this kit off Amazon to do it!
For a spa party, I’d go a couple different ways with food. Either do finger sandwiches, tea, fruit, and cupcakes. Or for the easy, version and get Subway sandwiches and pretty cupcakes!
The beautiful thing about a spa party or spa sleepover is that the favors are the spa items the girls have used! If you went really fancy you could even do matching robes for the girls. (This pack has 7 for $38 and the birthday girl gets her own color!)
Have a slumber party:
This is another fun option for a tween girl birthday party! They actually have companies near me that you can hire to come set up air mattresses, teepees and all the bedding for these types of parties and just rent the shit for the night. In the photos below, you can see what I did for my older daughter when she had a slumber party a couple years ago. It wasn’t for her birthday, it was just a regular sleepover. But if you can’t tell, I like to make things fancy.
I got two twin air mattresses and covered them with cute pink sheets and fuzzy blankets. Then, I got breakfast trays that I set on top of the bed. I got each girl a squishmallow, eye mask, sheet mask, and lip balm. And then I got the teepees here. The little flowers you see strewn between them are just battery powered lights. Now, you don’t need to have stuffed animals if your girl is older. Just add a couple spa items or fun snacks instead! If you don’t want to buy things individually, you can order an entire slumber party kit here.
Once again, the party favors for this party would be the treats that are sitting out on their trays! For food, I’d recommend keeping it in the slumber party vein and just order pizzas! Dessert could be cupcakes or a make-your-own ice cream sundae bar!
OR: You could ask the guests to arrive after dinner and just have snacks for the evening and then go big for breakfast! (Donuts, a pancake bar, a pastry bar where you just get an assortment of croissants/muffins/pastries from your local bakery.) Whatever carb you choose, throw in some fresh cut fruit and juice or smoothies and you’re ready to rock! The sky’s the limit when it comes to breakfast food ideas!
Now, of course there are a million other things you could do for house parties. Even just having good food and some yard games works and then your daughter can pick the theme she wants the decorations to be. But I hope this gave you some inspiration and a place to start! If you want to see what I did for my husband’s 40th party that I hosted at our house, read here. And if you want to shop for the items listed throughout this blog, I link them in my LTK page here. As always, thanks so much for stopping by!
