Are the countless weekends of stomping in dirty party water and walking home on University at 3 a.m. getting to you? Do you need to spend a night in with your girls, but you have no idea where to start? Well, you’ve come to the right place. By the end of this article, you will have planned such an awesome girl’s night that your friends would rather come over to your place every weekend than send you that frat party sign-up sheet ever again.
Girl’s Night Part 1: Activities
Movie night will only cut it the first 50 times. It’s time to spice up the evening and really bring it back to when your mom would throw you a birthday sleepover and had to “find a way to keep you girls entertained.”
1. Slime Making
I don’t know about you, but ever since my 2015 Instagram slime account flopped, I’ve never been the same. Now is the time to relive your middle school days and have gossip and slime sesh. Supplies you might want to stock up on are glue, an activator of your choice, food coloring, shaving cream, foam beads, glitter and clay etc. really go crazy here. If you feel like it, you can even make some slime-kneading videos for old times’ sake.
2. Vision Board Making
What better way to unwind than an IRL Pinterest night? Vision boards aren’t only a super creative form of self-expression, but all your guests now have a memento of girl’s night to take home with them. For this activity, I recommend using cardboard or poster board for the board and old magazines and newspapers for cut-outs. Other fun supplies could include stickers, markers, ribbons, pins, postcards, photos and washi-tape etc. If you want to be really fancy, you and your friends could make a shared Pinterest board and you could print out some favorite pins. Of course, don’t forget the scissors and glue!
3. Personal Pizza Making
Has the dining hall food not been treating you well? Fear not, tonight it’s time to put the chef’s hat on and make some fun individual pizzas for dinner. There are tons of different ways you could go about getting the ingredients for your pizzas. The first thing you will need is some mini pizza crusts. These from Target come three to a pack. There are also gluten-free options, such as Udi’s, that you could order in advance on their website. Next is sauce, cheese and toppings! I recommend determining with your group what their favorite toppings are so that everyone is happy, but some of my favorites are pepperoni, spinach and banana peppers.
Get creative with this! Try to make self-portraits with pepperoni or spell words on your dough with cheese. Not only is this a fun way to bond with your friends but now you all have a yummy dinner to enjoy, win-win!
4. Painting glasses or tote bags
For this activity, I’m leaving it up to you to choose which medium, but painting is a great chill activity for a girl’s night. If you choose to paint glasses, there is a great inexpressive selection of glasses at the Dollar Store that are perfect for painting. If you opt to paint totes, I recommend going to your local craft store to find some plain ones. If all else fails, there will always be a great selection of paint-able glasses and tote bags on Amazon. Other materials you will need include acrylic paint and paintbrushes or acrylic paint markers.
Girl’s Night Part 2: Snacks
What is a good night-in without good snacks? These are some fun, rapid-fire snack ideas to pair with any of the activities above.
1. Color-Coded snacks
Have the group decide on one specific color or assign a color to every person. Then everyone can bring a snack that pertains to that color.
Ex) Color: Orange, Snack: Cheez-its
2. Sweet and Salty
Everyone in the group brings one sweet and one salty snack to share with the group.
Ex) Oreos and Pringles
3. Seasonal Snacks
Everyone can bring a snack of their choice that pertains to the time of year.
Ex) Season: Fall, Snack: Pumpkin Spice Cookies
4. Never Have I Ever
Everyone brings a snack that they have never tried to share with the group. Try to make it something uncommon so hopefully other people haven’t tried it either. There’s lots of different, uncommon snacks at specialty grocery stores such as Trader Joe’s.