MAKE IT CUTE

Regroup with your girls with a regular sleepover date. If you can’t pick a night each week, try biweekly or even monthly. You’d best put a pencil to your planner, girlie, ‘cause next Friday? Yeah, I think you’re booked for the night.

Invites:

Grab some cardstock, printer or construction paper and a handful of markers. Sketch out the current month’s calendar and circle the date of your first sleepover. In the date box, write “SLEEPOVER at (your name’s) house”. Then, write out a cute message wherever you have room. Supply the time and your address if it’s been awhile—with a note saying, “Just in case you forgot where I lived…” 

Jazz ‘em up with doodles, stickers, glitter—whatever catches your fancy. Then slip the cards into yours besties’ lockers at school and await the “OMG, yes!” RSVPs.

Din-Din:

Girls gotta eat, right? Make your sleepover dinner into a tradition. Maybe you’ll always serve up the same thing—spaghetti or burgers or chicken wings—or maybe you’ll hit up the same local restaurant. Whatever it is, make it delish and intimate. If the weather’s nice, pack a picnic and take it outside. If it’s cold and wet, grab your plates and camp out Indian-style by the fireplace. You’ll find the routine just as comforting as rejoining your friends for a night of storytelling and laughter.

Dessert:

Why not bake a sweet worth sharing, and while you’re at it, get your besties in on the fun? Try out some of GL’s favorite dessert recipes, like these Chocolate Macaroons or the Melt Your Heart Fudge Brownies.

Not comfortable in the kitchen? Scoop up some outrageous ice cream sundaes…you know, the kind you’d only ever want your BFF to see you eating. Grab a box of cake mix at the supermarket and ask a parent to bake ’em for you in advance. You and your buds can frost those suckers whenever the mood strikes. Or dig into something decadent and store-bought: linzer tarts from a local bakery, fresh hot doughnuts from your neighborhood Krispy Kreme, or Entenmanns coffee cake. Yum!

Fun and Games:

Keep the gimmicks at bay and stick with the tried-and-true classics: card decks and board games. While you play, serve up a healthy dose of gossip and idle chit-chat. One more thing: Lighten up, rule-stickler! Embrace made-up Monopoly rules and your BFFs’ triumphs.

Most important of all, set a date for you next sleepover before your besties’ sleeping bags are out the door. What takes precedence over quality BFF time, huh?

by Brittany Taylor | 2/1/2016