My daughter, Megan, was confirmed last week and we decided to throw a party for her afterwards. Megan wants to be a Hollywood actress when she grows up, so she wanted to have the Hollywood theme for her party.

Megan and I made our own invitations. We cut out pictures of movie stars from various magazines we had at home and pasted them into collages on the cover of eight invitations. Inside we wrote the location, date and time of the party and instructions to come dressed as a movie star.

Megan and I decorated the house on Saturday evening so the girls could come directly from church on Sunday.

I took the old refrigerator box from the garage and cut it into the shape of rolling hills. Megan painted them green and John, her Dad, made a little "HOLLYWOOD" sign out of white poster board and Megan pasted it on top of one of the hills.

John bought some white clay and rolled it to a 1/4 inch thickness on a piece of plywood covered with a sheet of plastic. He then cut out nine 12" by 12" squares for each girl to press her hands into and pretend they were at a hand print ceremony at the famous ‘Mann Chinese Theatre’ in Los Angeles.

The girls went to the choir dressing rooms after the confirmation ceremony and changed into their costumes. There was such variety of stars from classic to modern--Charlie Chaplin, Julia Roberts and Bette Midler to name a few. Megan was Marilyn Monroe. I made the white dress from the Fuji film the "Seven Year Itch" from a pattern I found at the fabric shop and found the perfect wig at a costume shop. She was a perfect Marylyn look alike.

A make-up artist came to the house and did all the make-up for the girls. They had such a great time. A professional photographer took glamour portraits of them after they had finished getting ready. All of them looked fabulous. Some were shot on black and white and some in colour.

Meanwhile, John was busy grilling hamburgers and hot dogs for the girls and also the parents who came with them. There was plenty of Corona beer, Sebastiani wine and soft drinks for everyone. We had to borrow one of the two picnic tables from the next door neighbour, but there was plenty of room for everyone. Megan and I covered them with Marilyn Monroe printed paper table cloths we found at a party supply shop. They came with sets of matching paper plates, cups and napkins. After lunch I brought out the special cake I had ordered from the bakery for the occasion. It was a vanilla cake with raspberry cream filling, topped with pink icing. ‘Congratulations’ Megan was written in white icing on top.

After lunch, John led the girls over to the white clay. All the girls pressed their hand prints into the clay and signed their names with the date. They all set their clay in the sun to dry.

The party was a big success. The girls enjoyed the rest of the afternoon play acting in the back garden. The clay imprints were sent to all the girls after John's friend had baked them in a kiln. Megan propped hers up on her dressing table.