Birthday party ideas for 12-year-old

[muffinmonster]

Well, she's obviously not a teenager yet but hopefully lots of you on this thread will have had 12-year-olds recently so will be able to help. My DD turns 12 soon and I'm not sure what to do for her birthday. The obvious thing is cinema/pizza with a small group of friends, but I'm wondering if anyone has some more exciting suggestions? Thanks.

Murder Mystery Dinner Party.

pamper thing - do hair and nails and old fashioned party tea?

ice skating great fun then pizza or if shes sporty a rock climbing wall

or a sleepover if she hasnt had one already which im sure she has

bowling

Take her friends shopping - split them into teams, give them some money (found £10 was plenty) and give them a list to buy. eg strangest colour nail polish, smallest pen, cheapest lipgloss, most colourful socks. Then meet up for a meal and work out the winner. The teams get to divide their purchases between them. Did this for one of my DD's and they had a great time and kept them amused for over an hour.

DD had a disco for her 12th birthday. Very simple to organise - book a local hall and a DJ. They weren't interested in food at all - more bothered about the dressing up etc.

Tenpin bowling, or is that more of a boy thing?

Has your party been and gone muffinmonster? Was wondering what you decided. One of our best was hiring a (very small) boat for my DD2's birthday and packing a picnic hamper. We were only out on the river for a couple of hours but they absolutely loved it - some of them had never been on a boat before, so it was really different and great fun. Not as expensive as village hall and DJ either...you do need a confident skipper though!