14th Birthday Party Ideas

Your full-fledged teenager is probably all about being social right about now. Throw an unforgettable 14th birthday party for your 14-year-old and their closest friends! Browse this list of tested and true 14th birthday party ideas to kickstart your party planning. And don’t forget the custom t-shirts and face masks!

Tattoo Party

Temporary tattoo, that is! This 14th birthday party is sure to be a hit among the teens in your life. Whether you choose to use henna, air-brushing, or stick-on decals, there are tons of options available and no limits to your creativity. Choose a party theme, such as “Morocco” or “Bollywood”, to give your 14th birthday party some flair. Gather decorations, like fairy lights, flower garlands, pom-poms, lots of cushions, candles, and lanterns. Hire a professional artist or have guests apply their own tattoos. If you opt for DIY application, henna kits are available at craft stores and often include a books with simple designs. Take it up a notch and get some body glitter and stone embellishments to add a special touch to the designs. Enhance the theme by decorating the birthday cake and cookies with intricate frosting designs. Music will help set the atmosphere, but make sure you enlist the help of your 14-year-old to make the music playlist. After everyone is inked, play the “pillow-passing” game, a more rewarding version of hot potato. Have guests sit in a circle and pass around a pillow or parcel with a gift inside. When the music stops, the person with the parcel unwraps the gift!

Hotel Party

Teens will love a taste of independence mixed with a ton of fun! Book a night in a hotel for a cool 14th birthday party that will have every guest RSVPing with a big “YES!” Hosting a party away from home saves hours of cleaning before and after the party. Hotels offer large conference rooms that can be transformed into delightful party rooms with your decorations. Many hotels also have indoor swimming pools that your teens can enjoy any time of the year. Remember to book adjoining rooms so that everyone can mix and mingle and be sure to get a firm head count in advance. Just spending the night in a hotel together is a blast for teens, but add swimming and a few fun activities such as a scavenger hunt throughout the hotel, and you’ll have an amazing 14th birthday party!

Scary Party

Who doesn’t love a good scare? To host the scariest birthday party ever, start out with a game of Scare Fest where you divide the players into 2-4 teams. The object of this game is to make the other team scream as much as possible. Each team has to be as creative as possible (while keeping safety in mind, of course!). To keep track of the number of screams, assign each team a unique color and give every member of that team 5 poker chips in that color. When another team makes them scream, they must hand over one of their chips. Play as long as you like! At the end of the game, the team with the most chips wins. The team with the least chips has to suffer the consequences, such as sticking their hands in blood and guts (red water and cooked pasta). Play a game of mummy wrap where teams of two compete to see who can wrap a roll of toilet paper around their partner the fastest. Enhance the spooky atmosphere with a scary music playlist and decorate with lots of creepy crawlies. For a deliciously eye-popping appetizer, spread cream cheese around the outside of a stuffed olive to make it look like an eyeball. Make an edible graveyard cake by decorating a square cake with grave stone shaped cookies with “RIP” written on them!

Paintball Party

Hosting a paintball birthday party will keep your teens engaged all day long! Have the paintball party at a commercial paintball field or in your own backyard. Make sure that everyone wears protective paintball gear to ensure their safety. If your birthday honoree has never played before, gift them a paintball gun package that includes everything they need to play, such as a paintball gun, protective mask, hopper, and CO2 tank for a discounted price. If it’s possible, host a ‘BYOPBG’ (Bring Your Own Paintball Gun) party. If guests aren’t able to bring their own gear consider having your party at a commercial paintball field.  It’s also smart to stock up on several low priced paintball masks and extra hoppers in case guests show up without them or there’s a breakdown. Remember that protective eye wear is always mandatory. Instead of just releasing your group into the open wild, organize several paintball games that are suitable for your location. The most simple game is to divide your group into two teams and play simple elimination rounds. Most players enjoy using working strategies and communication skills with their team mates to conquer a mission. Consider playing games like Capture the Flag, where each team has to infiltrate the other’s base, capture their flag and bring it back to their home base to win. A game called All The President’s Men is also fun to play; 2-3 players must protect one another, while the rest of the group has to try to eliminate the target. You can even build makeshift bunkers for your guests to hide behind. Consider using stacks of old tires, barrels, barns, sheds, or simply a pile of wood! A field littered with big round hay bails makes a very good paintball battlefield. If you have a wooded hill, King of the Mountain is also very fun game to play; several players on top of the hill try to defend their position while being attacked by all the rest!

Emoji Party

Celebrate your 14th birthday with every emotion from sleepy to ecstatic! Decorate by sticking large emoji emblems on the walls and draw emoji faces on yellow helium-filled balloons. Make your own large emoji to play Pin the Face on the Emoji. Take a yellow table cloth and hold it tight around a hula hoop. Then, staple it in place around the edges. Using either felt or bristol board, cut out a variety of emoji features and apply double-sided tape to the back of each piece. Blindfold each guest and then have them pin the features on the big emoji. They are sure to ROFL! Serve personal pizzas with toppings to form the expressions. Cut up pepperoni and ham to form popular emoji expressions, and use veggies like green peppers for smiles and eyebrows. Mini Gouda cheese wheels provide a natural base for emojis, and you can personalize each one with black food-color pens.

Pokemon Go Party

Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm— especially the teenage set. Join the craze and celebrate your 14th birthday with Pokemon Go! Set a meeting place such as a public park where you know there will be tons of Pokemon to catch. Enjoy walking through the park catching Pokemon together. Either rent a pavilion at the park or head back home after the hunt to continue celebrating with yummy food and drinks. The circular Pokemon shapes provide some great food ideas such as turning a cheese pizza into a Pokeball by using black olives to form the line across the center and circle in the middle. Pepperoni slices form the red half of the ball while the white side remains cheese only. Decorate paper lanterns with Pokemon character faces and hang a Pokeball piñata— yes, even teens love a piñata full of candy and trinkets! Play Pin the Tail on Pikachu, and if you’re feeling really creative, transform your birthday teen’s favorite character into a deliciously delightful birthday cake.

Spa Party

Pamper your birthday teen and their guests by indulging them in luxurious spa party. You don’t have to book appointments at an expensive salon— you can do it all at home with a little preparation. Have your guests arrive in comfy yoga clothing and hand out hair bands to each youngster. Set up stations throughout the house: one for pedicures, another for facials, and one for manicures. Enlist a few parents to help work each station. Starting with the fancy feet station, fill a few square buckets with warm water and fizzing foot soap (a mixture of baking soda, corn starch, citric acid, and your favorite fragrance oil). After their tootsies are nice and clean, provide a variety of nail colors and paint their toenails or have them paint each others. For the facial station, set out bowls of a delicious-smelling mask mixtures and unused paint brushes. Paint on face masks and rest their heads on rolled-up towels while they chill out to their favorite tunes. Place cucumber slices over their eyes for a cool refreshing feel. A fun manicure idea is to cover a large table with a plastic tablecloth and set out a variety of at least 10 different nail polishes. Have each guest select a color and seat them all at the table. Play music and then stop it after a minute or so and whichever color the party goer is holding is the color they use for one fingernail. Continue this game of musical nail polish until all 10 fingers are painted. Serve dainty little blossom tea sandwiches by cutting bread and cucumbers with different small sizes of cookie cutters. Spread cream cheese on the bread, then top with a slice of cucumber, and a halved cherry tomato. Voila— a pretty little yummy treat!

Camping Party

Camp outs are perfect for teens who want to get away but aren’t quite old enough to go out on their own. Start your rocking camp party planning by sending out invitations shaped like tents, of course! Provide enough tents so that everyone has sleeping space, but have guests bring their own sleeping bags. Some fun camping games and activities include catching lightning bugs in glass jars, sleeping bag races, and telling ghost stories.  Roast hot dogs and marshmallows by the fire or on the grill. Sing campfire songs from the past or make up your own but remember to sing the most important song of the night, “Happy Birthday!”

Neon/Glow Party

Glow parties are all the rage these days and they are pretty easy to pull-off, too! Invite your guests to wear fluorescent clothing and glow-in-the-dark accessories. Stock up on supplies such as black lights and glow sticks in all shapes and sizes. Darken the room and fill it with vibrant decorations made with strings of glowing LED lights in a variety of colors. Fill a box with neon-colored plastic sunglasses, bracelets, rings, and other accessories for fun party favors for your guests. If you want to take your glow party to the next level, consider painting yourself with glow paint and offering it to your guests. Glow-in-the-dark body paint is often available from specialty stores like costume shops, Halloween supply stores, and online. To create the look and feel of a “rave” at your glow party, consider playing classic house/techno or modern EDM (electronic dance music). You can throw a great glow party with almost any sort of playlist, as long as you’ve got great music! Try to have a playlist of music picked out before your party begins. Get together with your teen ahead of time and pick out songs for their party. Set your playlist to shuffle and have fun!

Fear Factor

A sure way to conquer fears and have fun at the same time is to throw a fear factor birthday party. Instead of using the elimination method like they do on the show, consider using a point system so that all your guests can be involved and can participate without being eliminated. At the end of all the games, whoever has the most points wins! Choose challenges worthy of the title by considering some of these ideas: Egg Roulette— place a bowl of boiled eggs in front of the players. All players must pick up an egg out of a big bowl and on the count of three, immediately crack it against their forehead. Tell the players beforehand that one of the eggs is actually raw. Who has the courage to egg themselves in the face? The trick is that ALL the eggs are actually boiled and this is just a test of courage. The players that hesitates to crack the egg fails. Award all the players that don’t hesitate with 5 points. Baby Food Taste Test— empty a variety of different jars of baby food into individual bowls (make sure you know which is which), label the bowls with numbers and challenge players to taste every bowl and try and guess what it is. Make sure to have paper and pencils handy so guests can write their answers on them. Award 1 point for every correct guess and 3 additional points to the one that has the most correct guesses. Dog Biscuit Race— players will pick up a dog biscuit with their mouths and race to drop it in a bucket on the other side of the room (or yard if you’re playing outside). Have a bowl of six dog biscuits ready for each player, and place a large bucket at the other side of the playing area for all players to use. Add some of your own challenges and you’ve got a great birthday party!

Minute to Win It

Throw a Minute to Win It party and challenge your friends to try and complete wild and wacky challenges in a minute or less! Choose a selection of games for the challenges using ordinary household objects as props. To play the Mummy Game, have the player take the loose end of a roll of toilet paper and hold it in their hand. The roll is held on a holder, broom stick, or by another player next to them. When the clock starts the player must spin around as fast as they can as the toilet paper wraps around them. The winner is the most covered mummy at the end of one minute. In Skittle Scurry, a large bowl of Skittles is set at one side of the table while a cup is placed on the other end. Give the player a straw and on the start of go, they have one minute to suck as many Skittles as they can onto their straw (one at a time) and race it over to drop it in their cup. At the end of one minute, their Skittles are added up and the places are given based on who collected the most. In Cup Hands, each player must place a party cup over each hand and stack as many dice as they can on top of each other in one minute. The player with the highest tower wins.

Gamer Party

Invite guests to get their GAME ON on for this unique birthday party experience! If your budget allows, hire a Game Truck to come to you and provide your eager group of gamers 90 minutes of uninterrupted gaming. Game Trucks even provide a gaming coach to be with your players the entire time to make sure everyone is having fun and staying safe. Game characters provide ample ideas for decorations ranging from a PacMan brie cheese wheel to Space Invaders cupcakes! While the kids are on the Game Truck, offer the parents some video game themed snacks, such as Power-up Star fruit, Hothead Hummus, and Fire Flower Veggies. Use silicone ice cube trays to mold melted candy into little chocolate Wii remotes and top them with fondant Pacman and his ghost friends. Teenagers love photo booths, so hang some fabric and use two light stands to create the backdrop. For another alternative, tape fabric or bulletin board paper to a wall. Remember to include plenty of props such as PacMan, the ghosts, power up stars, mustaches, Donkey Kong, and speech bubbles. Dig through your old costume boxes to find Super Mario hats and a few aliens masks to add to the fun!

Outdoor Movie Party

If your teen loves the idea of spending a night under the stars with their best friends, an outdoor movie party is the way to go! Set up a movie screen outside, or use the side of your house, get a projector and a couple of your teen’s favorite movies. They might even prefer to binge a little on Netflix! Decorate the outside area with white string lights to add a festive glow. Provide plenty of indoor/outdoor pillows and comfy lawn chairs. Set up a concession stand complete with a Jelly Belly and a popcorn bar. Use the jellybeans and other treats to have a cupcake decorating contest. Have a jellybean blind taste test where the blind-folded person has to guess the flavor of each jellybean as they are fed to him/her. To add a little salty to all of that sweetness, provide a variety of popcorn flavors such as buttered, white cheddar and caramel. Play a game of How Many? by placing jellybeans in a jar— let the winner take the jar home!