Is there any party more delightful than sweet 16? If you’re stuck for 16th birthday party ideas, then you need to sit back and start counting! It’s easy enough if you remember that a sweet 16 party is all about that magic number. How many sweet sixteen balloons do you buy? Sixteen, of course. Turning 16 can be the perfect time for an all-girls party or for a co-ed gathering. No matter what you choose to do, talk with your sweet 16 birthday girl first for her ideas. She might be hoping for a good old fashioned slumber party or something a bit more elegant that announces she is approaching adulthood.

Ideas for an informal 16th party can take advantage of the classic teen foods like pizza, ice cream sundaes, sub sandwiches, nachos, and lots of soda. When thinking about a more “sweet” party, consider sixteen delicate and tiny birthday cakes surrounding one floral arrangement. Another idea is to keep the guest list to sixteen friends. How about a party where the guest of honor opens sixteen mystery boxes to find one final gift tucked inside? Or a cluster of small items like sixteen favorite candy bars, sixteen colors of nail polish, sixteen gift certificates to favorite fast food restaurants or sixteen movie tickets? Invitations to your party could be presented on candy bar wrappers for the chocolate fiend. For mystery, you could send out a small key enclosed in each of the sixteen invitations. Once your guests arrive, let them try their luck at opening a small chest which contains sixteen special prizes. Keep in mind that often the most creative and appreciated items are the least expensive.

If you’re a parent of a pre-teenager or adolescent, you probably know from experience that slumber parties are a big deal for kids. They look forward to them for days and often remember them for years. While a slumber party may be a bit of a sacrifice for the adults, in terms of lost sleep, diminished privacy, and a disruption of the usual routine, the advantages to your child often outweigh the short-term inconvenience of being woken up by midnight giggling. Slumber parties not only help kids solidify friendships, but they also get to have bedtime rules relaxed for one night.

Among the challenges of allowing your child to host a sleepover in your home is helping them come up with slumber party ideas that will be fun and memorable, but not expensive or too messy. One component of many slumber parties is a carefully chosen craft activity, which needs to be both age appropriate and, of course, gender appropriate. Most kids enjoy the creativity of crafts, especially if it involves something cool that they can wear, use, or otherwise show off.

A trip to your local craft store will provide many of the slumber party ideas and supplies you need to keep the kids entertained for an hour or two; but shopping for your slumber party needs on the Internet can be faster and easier – especially if you start out your search with one or two unique slumber party ideas in mind. T shirt painting can be a fun idea for a sleepover, but unless your kid’s friends are a bunch of ‘neatniks”, there will probably be a big mess for you to clean up at the end of the evening. One solution to that problem is to buy an adequate supply of colorful, non-toxic fabric markers that leave a minimal mess and dry in minutes, rather than hours. If you pick that activity, you might want to consider including some bright neon fabric markers, too, which can make the creative process even more enjoyable for the kids.