For my daughters 10th birthday, we held a "Miss America Pageant."  We created tri-fold brochures on the computer which listed the date, time, location (at home), and the events - Talent, Model, Sing "Happy Birthday", and Limbo, and the additional categories that would be judged - Best Hair, Best Smile, Best Dressed, Fastest Cake Eater (with no hands!), Best "Girls are Better than Boys Speech" and "How I plan on Saving the World spech" etc.. We made sure that there was a category for as many people as she invited to guarantee a party favor for them - a trophy from trophydepot.com. We ordered them 2 weeks in advance, and they were very inexpensive.  In the kids family room, I set up 2 round tables w/ 8 chairs at each table and decorated with linens, and flower centerpieces. (I rented them, along with a popcorn machine, and 40 helium ballons - you can really bargain with party places for package prices).    Each girl when they arrived received a sash - made from wide red ribbon from a craft store with the ends glued together (be sure to cut on an angle at the bottom) and the state writton in silver glitter glue across it.  When the girl's called to RSVP we had them pick the state they would like to represent. The evening was 3 hours long- and it flew by!  I was especially amazed with the talent portion- some girls sang, some played the violin, while others did gymnastics and one wrote and recited a poem.  For "fastest cake eater", I made individual cupcakes for each girl (seperate from the cake).  We did all the events, two parents stayed to help and were the judges (they filled out score cards on each girl), and we ended it by handing out trophies. Points were added up and the girls each won one trophy (if the top scorer already had a trophy, it went to the next one in line- they did not know this though).  I took photos of each girl modelling their dress and sent a copy to them with the thank you.   Food included a buffet style dinner (I purchased items from a wholesale club and cooked them a few hours before the party. I warmed them up in the oven right before the party time). A lot of parents were excited about this and stayed to help out- a plus for me!