Star Struck - A Rock Star Party

A rock star party is very popular with the school age set and it is easy to plan on any budget.

Invitations: Impress your guests with invitations made in the shape of a star, concert ticket or backstage pass. Use card stock and your computer. Individual sheets of card stock can be purchased at Kinkos or Michaels. Use wording like "Exclusive Engagement", "One Day Only" at "Your child's name Auditorium". Encourage your guests to come dressed as their favorite pop star.

Two vendors have pre-printed Rock Star invites on-line: Birthday Express and Oriental Trading Company. If you like a more traditional approach, Paper Direct and Vista Print have an excellent array of star-themed papers for you to personalize on your computer.

Decorations: The concept for decorating a Rock Star Party is bright and flashy. Ask the birthday girl or boy to choose the color palette. A selection of balloons, crepe paper, curling ribbon and/or confetti can easily deliver the desired look. For a splurge, consider hanging records and stars from the ceiling and adding cardboard cut-outs of guitars and posters of popular musicians to the mix. Lots of choices for rock star paper goods and decorations are available on-line or at your local party store. Three on-line sources with a wide variety of rock star items are Birthday Express, Birthday Direct and Oriental Trading Company.

Set aside space in the party room for a dance area. Have a selection of music on hand. Guests can bring their ipods or ask the birthday child to plan the music.

Activities: Having photos taken in a cool rock star pose makes for a fun ice breaker. Guests can take turns singing or lip synching while pictures are taken. Have pretend microphones ($0.27) available for each guest. Kids can take the microphones home as favors. Have an adult helper print off the photos during the party so kids can take them home as favors in inexpensive cardboard photo folders (25 for $10.50).

Stage a lip synching/karaoke show. Video-tape each act. If you have the computer resources, an adult helper can burn a DVD-R with the video for each guest to take home.

Games: Dance Freeze is a good one for this party. Play music, everyone dances, stop the music, everyone freezes. Those who move are out. Last player remaining wins.

Rock Star Trivia is also a relevant choice for this theme. Prepare trivia questions about the kids' favorite rock stars, for example, first name of Bonus Jonas brother. Fan web-sites and Wikipedia are good sources for this trivia. Divide group into two teams. Team with most correct answers wins.

Craft: Guests can make autograph books. Cut 8 1/2 x 11 inch "typing" paper in half to 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch in size. Give each guest enough sheets to receive an autograph from all the other guests. (With a maximum of four autograph panels per page, five guests need two sheets, ten guests three sheets, and so on.) Fold resulting 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch papers in half. Give each kid a card stock cover 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch and have them fold that in half too, putting typing paper inside to make the book. Pass out 20 inch lengths of skinny curling ribbon or cording. Have kids place ribbon around book on spine-fold and tie knot and simple bow. Books are now ready to decorate covers and be autographed. If you prefer, autograph books can be purchased for $2.25.

Food: Serve a selection of kid friendly treats like cheesy pigs in a blanket, carrot and celery sticks with ranch dressing dip and Sun Chips. A simple cran-raspberry punch is an easy way to quench the thirst of the party rockers.

Cake: Make the cake your child's favorite flavor. A practical choice is a round or square layer cake embellished with bright icing and musical notes crafted out of black decorating gel or icing - available in the baking section of your local market.

Three popular choices to crank it up a notch are the Rock Star Cake, the Wilton Guitar Cake or the Betty Crocker cut-up Guitar Cake. If you prefer cupcakes, try easy Psychedelic Cupcakes. These colorful cupcakes need no icing.

Tip - To make ice cream easier to serve at the party, the day before place scoops of ice cream in muffin pans lined with paper baking cups, cover and freeze. Move ice cream from freezer to refrigerator about 15 minutes before serving to make it softer and easier for kids to handle.

Favors: Send guests home with microphones, photos, autograph books, and/or DVD-R of lip-synching show. Add small bags of rock star candies - pop rocks, tootsie rolls and/or star bursts, if desired.

Plan B: Have a pop star DVD on hand as a back-up activity, for example, one of the Cheetah Girls or High Musical trilogies, Cinderalla Story II, Princess Protection Program, Star Struck or Camp Rock.