Barbie Birthday Party Fun

Are you in need of some great ideas for your daughter's next Barbie birthday party? Barbies are fun to play with and for some little girls, a wonderful part of their growing up years. What do you do when your daughter wants a Barbie themed birthday party?

Everything You Need for Barbie Birthday Celebration:

Party Tips
Games and Activities
Party Food Ideas
Cake Ideas
Party Invitation and Wording Ideas
Decorations and Party Favors

Keep it Simple Barbie Birthday Party Ideas

When planning a Barbie birthday party, remember that Barbie is about much more than just being pretty. In all of the Barbie books and movies that we have at our house, Barbie is a role model. She always is helping people out and the moral of the story is always a good lesson.

It is probably a good idea to make the party an "all girls" party. Barbie lends itself to this very well.
A Barbie party is much like a princess party in the sense that a smaller group makes for a more pleasant party. A good number to shoot for is around 8 girls. Always remember too that not every person you invite is going to be able to come.
If your daughter is into princess things and Barbie, you might want to consider combining both themes and having a princess Barbie birthday party. For some fun princess party ideas go to the princess party page.
Be on the lookout throughout the year on items that go on clearance that you might possibly use at your party. After Halloween and after Valentine's Day is a great time to look for sales on fun items to use.

Games and Activities

Even though I like to think of Barbie as just more than a pretty doll to play with, you just can't give a little girl's Barbie birthday party without focusing a little bit on the color pink and the glamour part of it as well. Here are some fun glamor girl activities to use.

Fingernail painting- Before the party, purchase little bottles of nail polish in assorted colors or in all one color. When you are ready for this activity, bring out all of the nail polishes on a pretty silver or mirror tray. Let each girl pick a bottle. It is great if you purchase the fast drying polish. You are less likely to get any polish on your carpet or furniture if you use this kind. Give them specific instructions not to open the bottles until it is their turn. It is also a great idea to pay a teenage neighbor, friend, or family member to come and help you do activities such as this one. This will free you up to be monitoring the party, taking pictures, and getting ready for the next activity. Let the girls take turns getting their nails painted. When each girl has her nails painted send her to another station where she can dry her nails at a portable nail dryer. I once picked these up at Wal-Mart in their Christmas clearance section for under $4.00. These make great birthday presents for young girls as well. It is always a birthday present hit! If your birthday budget allows, why not give each girl a set of nail stickers as well? When you are done painting each girl's nails, you can give them their nail polish to take home. Put it inside their goody bags that you have placed by the front door.

Barbie princess- If you are combining a princess theme with your Barbie birthday party, a great thing to do is to have all the girls come dressed as their favorite Barbie princesses. Before you do this though, check with each of the mothers to make sure that their daughter has a dress-up outfit like this. If not, either don't do this activity or let a guest without one borrow one of your daughter's dresses.

Bring a Barbie- It is so much fun to have each of your guests bring their favorite Barbie to the party. A fun thing to do if your daughter has a lot of Barbie furniture and accessories is to set out all of these things in one part of your home. When the girls arrive with their own Barbie, they can spend time playing together. For example, at our house, we would have a Barbie swimming pool, disco stage, car, bike, carriage, kitchen, and many clothes available for all to enjoy! You might want to consider putting away all extra accessories that belong to your daughter if there might be some tears if they disappeared. It is very easy for little things like Barbie shoes and combs to get lost, misplaced, or accidentally taken home. When it is time to move onto another party, you can have all the girls set their Barbie in a special place like on a porch railing, fire place, etc. This keeps them safe and out of the way so none get broken or misplaced during the party.

Hair stylin'- One of my favorite activities to do is to fix all of the girls' hair. Before the party, I purchase each girl a sparkly hair barrette and a bottle of glitter hair spray. It is a great idea to have an extra helper available for this activity as it will go so much smoother and quicker if there is more than one person trying to fix hair. A fun thing to do is to buy a hair styling magazine that shows pictures of ladies' hair fixed up fancy. Cut these pictures out and glue them all on a poster board. When each girl is ready to have her hair done, have her choose the style that she likes. Fix it quickly, spray on some glitter spray, and you are good to go! Many beauty shops and little girl stores do this but charge a lot for this type of party. You can incorporate it into your party at your house for a few dollars.

Soccer or Kickball Anyone?- Not all girls like to play dress-up or like to participate in the glamour activities. If your daughter is more sports oriented but still enjoys playing with Barbie, why not enjoy a game of soccer or kickball? If you look in the sports section of your favorite discount store, you can usually find a pink ball or Barbie ball of some sort to play fun games such as these.

Barbie Birthday Party Food Ideas

Unless you are going to incorporate a tea party into your Barbie birthday party, it works out better for this theme to just have cake and ice cream. For help with a tea party, see the princess party page. If there will not be a tea party, then try to focus your food just on cake, ice cream, and a few simple snacks. It is always fun to have the little pastel wedding mints out. Little girls love eating them. You can pair this with some pink lemonade. Also, if you are going to have ice cream then some sort of strawberry ice cream is always fun to have at a party where almost everyone thinks pink is "the color." Having a cake and ice cream party makes it very easy for you to focus on the activities at the party.

Barbie Cake Ideas

When deciding what type of cake to serve at your daughter's Barbie birthday party, just think pink. In all actuality, the cake doesn't really need to be Barbie related at all. Since Barbie is so many different things to so many different girls, just think about your daughter and make a cake that reminds you of her or what she enjoys. Even a sports cake like a soccer cake can be made to look "girly" and fun. My favorite cake that I ever made was so simple and fun. It was just a white heart cake with purple candy sugar sprinkled on the top and a big pink #3 written on the top. My daughter loved this cake and it still went with the theme. Above is a picture of this sweet cake. If your daughter truly has her heart set on a Barbie cake, then I would suggest picking out one of the cute Barbie cakes that many grocery stores and/or discount stores offer.

Another alternative is to just purchase the cake toppers from the store, make a simple cake yourself, and add the store bought toppers to the top. This is a common thing that happens at my house when birthday party budgets are low.

Last but not least, another favorite cake of mine is the Wilton Barbie doll kit. It comes with everything to make a very cute Barbie cake just like the one I made that is pictured here.

Barbie Birthday Party Invitation Wording and Ideas

Personally, I would purchase the Barbie store bought invitations for this party. You can't get any cuter or more Barbie than a Barbie invitation. This is easy and allows you to focus more energy on other parts of the party. However if you like to create your own invitations, here is some Barbie invitation wording for you to use:

"Come on girls!

We can't wait!

___________'s turning 5,

And she wants to celebrate!

Wear some pink,

And bring a Barbie or two!

It's a Barbie birthday bash

For me and for you!

There will be ice cream, cake,

And lots of girl things to do.

Don't forget to bring your Barbie,

She can come too!

We can't wait to see you there!"

Use the above ideas to help make your daughter's Barbie birthday party dreams come true! Also check out these other girl themes for some fun ideas that you might be able to incorporate into your party. Enjoy and happy planning!

Barbie Birthday Party Favors

When looking for Barbie birthday party favors, the choices are endless. In fact, you will probably find that your problem will not be that you can't find anything to put in the goody bags. Your problem will most likely be that there is too much to choose from, and you will have to narrow down your choices to include what you can afford to put in.

Before looking at all the options available, let me suggest one item that you might like. My favorite favor to give is Barbie clothes, especially if you have the girls bring their favorite Barbie to the party. You can attach a little note that says something like this, "Thank you for coming to my party. I hope you have fun dressing your Barbie in her new clothes." Barbie clothes tend to run a little over $2.00 per outfit unless you find them on clearance somewhere. This is a pretty inexpensive party favor if you only have eight girls. Also if you have less girls, you can actually give them their own swimming Barbie for about $5.00 each. What little girl who likes to play with Barbies wouldn't be so excited to go home with a Barbie of their own?

If the idea of not giving out a goody bag is uncomfortable, then you might want to try one of the many Barbie products out there. Some of them include Barbie fruit snacks, a Barbie toothbrush, Barbie band-aids, nail polish, plastic dress-up jewelry, fingernail stickers, Barbie stickers, a Barbie storybook, etc. The list could go on and on. Just use your imagination and keep your eyes open when shopping. It is amazing what you can find that has a Barbie theme when you are looking specifically for these items.