The best party I ever did was for my daughter when she was 12. What do 12 year old girls want? They want to be free of Mom & Dad and they want to shop. I figured out what it would cost to do the big party thing and divided it by the number of party goers, worked out to $20.00 each. I called my sister to see if she would hang out with me and we went to the mall. I gave each party guest the $20.00 (told them they had to get dinner out of that), Sis and I found a table in the mall, made sure that DD had a cell phone and let them go. They browsed, met other kids, saw and were seen, got a big piece of pizza and a drink for under 4 bucks. Sis and I had a nice dinner and chat at the table in the mall and were close by if needed. Afterwards we went home and the girls did the popcorn and movie thing and slept over. It was great.