DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Dueling Diva DIY Sleepover.

This article is from guest writer, Ryan, from Fun Kids Pajamas.
(Used with permission)

Dueling Diva DIY Sleepover

Do your kids love Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera? Here is a way that you can help them have a fun, crafting, DIY themed sleep over party while bringing out their inner Divas.

Setting the Scene

Before the sleepover create blank name boards for each of the guests to decorate and display when they are performing.  We have included instructions at the bottom of the article explaining how to do this.

To get the party started, each participant is given three star shaped cookies to decorate as they see fit.  They can use golden sprinkles and glitter frosting to make theirs the most divalicious and fabulous. After they’ve decorated all three they have to choose the best one and set it aside for a judge to arrange nicely in a basket.  You’ll find out why later.

Then, each child can start by creating a giant diva flower out of tissue paper, pipe cleaners and wooden dowels (you can spray paint these green ahead of time if you’d like). Check the instructions section at the bottom of the post for information on how to create these.

Judges and Diva Division

Every competition needs a judge.  In this case, parents or older siblings work great.  It is their job to score both the diva teams and individuals during each contest.  First, split the children into two groups.  Then, give them a poster board and markers, glitter, glue and tissue paper so that each team can create a billboard with the team name for their super group.  Whenever any member of their team is performing, they should hang these along with the performer’s personal diva name board.

The first competition is crafting some artful accessories. Provide each team member with blank tiara patterns to be cut out of cardstock and cheap blank wrist cuffs.  You will also want to have an assortment of Rhine stones, glitter, feathers, and other fake jewels, as well as glue that will allow the Rhine stones and jewels to bond with paper and plastic.

After everyone has finished creating and designing their accessories, they can model them on a diva catwalk while their teammates hold up their name board.  The criteria should be flashiness, diva strut, and artistic talent. Each criterion is worth 10 points for an activity total of 30 per girl.  The girl with the most points earns 1 point for her team.

Sing-off

Get one bucket for each team and have each member create a diva business card to place in it.  It should have their stage name, and any other important details about them.  Then, each team member can choose a name from the opposing team’s bucket.  These will be their singing competitors, who they will sing against in a duet.

Good songs are Disney duets like a Whole New World from Aladdin, or Can You Feel the Love Tonight from The Lion King.  If you don’t have enough Disney songs, you can take popular songs the kids like, print out the lyrics and highlight each verse in alternating colors that each girl will sing.  When they get to the refrain, they should sing it together and compete to see who is the bigger diva.

To get the karaoke version of each song, you can easily search for it in YouTube and hook the computer up to the TV or show them the monitor while it plays.  As they both sing, the judges should keep score based on who can hit the high notes, low notes, and has the best total ability to stand out. Each girl can win up to 10 point individually and the girl who wins earns 1 point for her team.

Dance-off

Of course, vocal abilities aren’t even half of what it takes to be a diva.  Teams should split into two different areas where they can choose and listen to their favorite song from the sing-off.  Here they can develop their new hit dance routines that will be the sensation sweeping the nation. Give each team 20 - 30 minutes to choreograph their routine.  You can also provide props, such as hula hoops, their giant flowers and anything else that would be fun to add to their routines. Each time the whole team successfully uses the prop, they get an extra point added onto their teams’ total score.  But remember -- every member of their team has to use the prop at least once, otherwise they don’t get any extra points.  When they are done planning, bring the teams back to the stage or performance area, where they can compete to show who has the best moves.  The winning team gets 2 points, in addition to the prop bonus points. Each girl from the winning team gets 1 additional bonus point.

Other Activities

If you want to provide a couple other fun activities for the girls, you can try decorating a diva birthday cake, the girls could decorate the performance area with paper chains, crepe paper, flowers, cutouts, or whatever else they feel belongs on a diva stage or performance space.  You could even have them cut out their favorite divas from old magazines and post them all over the room to really set the mood and help them feel inspired.

The Grand Finale

To cap off the festivities before bed, judges should calculate the score of each team, and then announce the winning diva group.

Group Prize:
Present the carefully arranged basket of cookies.  This will be the prize for the winning team to split.  It is a fun, creative and tasty treat that they will enjoy sharing.  Because there is exactly one cookie per guest, in an unlike diva fashion, they can also offer a cookie to each of the girls on the other team if they want to be nice.

Individual Prize:
For the individual prize, line up the girls’ name boards along a wall. Each of the girls can lay her flower down by the girl who they think was the best diva.  The girl with the most flowers wins 5 points towards her total score that can help the girl win.  The judges can tally this up with their numbers, and then gather each of the flowers to give to the girl of the night for her diva-tastic, giant flower bouquet.

By this point, the kids should be full on star cookies as well as sung-out, danced-out, and generally tired out.  Have them change into their favorite fun kids pajamas and relax by watching a Miley Cyrus or teenage popstar movie or concert.  After a night of these activities all the kids will be dreaming of stars in their sleep.

Instructions:

Foam diva boards:
Cut out equally sized strips of foam board that are 5 or 6 inches tall.  On each of these strips, write out the kid’s names in block letters.  This way as soon as the girls have arrived they can cover each of their letters in glitter and magic marker or paint to beautify and bedazzle them.  To hang these up, post larger foam boards on both sides of the stage.  Attach rough pieces of Velcro to these, and soft pieces to the back of the team and name boards.  This way, whenever a girl is performing, her board, along with her team’s, can be displayed above them.

Giant tissue flowers:
To create giant tissue flowers, place 5-7 multi-colored pieces of tissue paper and fold them lengthwise as many times as you can, like a closed fan.  Next, tie a pipe cleaner tightly around the middle of the papers, and then carefully fan out each layer of tissue one by one.  At this point, you can use more pipe cleaners to attach the flowers to the dowels and ribbons to decorate it and each guest will have her personal giant diva flower.  You can also use cardboard cut outs to form leaves.

January 2013