Teen Mall Campout Party -13yr- Late Night Flashlights

For My 13th birthday party, I threw the most amazing party ever. Me and ten friends went to the mall for a few hours then returned home to have a campout in my backyard. (If you do not have a backyard you can always pitch some tents in the living room.) This party idea works best for groups of 5-10 girls.

The party is a bit on the expensive side, but becoming a teen is a very important day, so my family agreed to splurge. If you plan to camp outdoors, check the weather beforehand or the party will be a major bust!

Invites: For my invitations, I created a beautifully decorated list of Survival Necessities." I put several things down such as lip gloss credit card etc and for the last few lines I put down the party information.  @ the Mall: The guests were required to bring their own money to buy things and at my house before we left everybody wrote down their five favorite stores.

We compiled a list of stores to go to and set a time limit of thirty minutes absolute maximum at any store. Also we set a rule that each person can only buy a maximum of six things at the mall so that people who couldn't afford as much wouldn't feel bad. My mom drove us to the mall and we went to all the stores on the list and found time to stop for Starbucks. 

Back @ home: While we were at the mall my parents had pitched the tents outside for us to sleep in. Before the party I had already decorated the back-patio with streamers and many paper lanterns of various sizes. This looks best if you choose two or three colors and buy everything in those colors. On the table we had an assortment of snacks and candies (again when purchasing try to stick to the color scheme if you cannot find food in the colors buy some cheap plastic bowls in the colors to put the food in.

For dinner we had two options: Thai and Mexican with several platters set out with things from each restaurant (catered) and guests served themselves. For desert we had cake of course and ice cream. After dinner we watched a movie then went outside to go camping. 

Camping!: For the camping part of this activity you will need lots of flashlights and one or two large tents. Clean the tents out beforehand and place blankets and pillows all around maybe a few bean bags and a table for drinks and snacks if you have the space (this is what we did). We have a firepit so we made s'mores.

Then you can play some flash-light truth-or-dare and tell some ghost stories (pass on this activity if you have some guests that don't feel comfortable or go inside to tell the stories of course). We fell asleep around 1 but obviously you can go to bed earlier or later depending on your schedule.

The next morning we had a pancake bar (lay out several ingredients like strawberries bananas and chocolate chips and guests chose which they would like in their pancake) which we prepared on our griddle. Around noon parents started to pick up their kids. 

This was definitely an amazing party that all guests will enjoy (though I don't suggest inviting any tomboys because of the shopping part) and I would recommend it to anybody looking for a great party idea!  "