I have to agree with Deb, that at 8 years old what they think is great is probably not going to be the same as your plans! My neighbor down the street lets her girls --8 and 7-- "scrapbook" with her and they mainly like to cut their pictures and sometimes mat them, use stickers, use the pounches sometimes, use scraps of paper glued in, and write in their books. Not what we would do, but perfect to their eyes!
Here's my thoughts, you can take them or leave them. At 8 years old, trying to do a scrapbook, even a small one, may be too much for some girls. Some just cannot sit still that long, some will have little interest, some will hurry through, some will take forever just to pick one piece of paper, etc. What will you do with the girl that is done in 10 minutes (and there will always be at least one!) or the one who only gets one page done and gets upset? The only way around this would be to have everyone do the exact same thing on each page so you can control how much time is spent.
As an alternative--have you thought about having them do a page--8 1/2 x 11-- and then framing it with the inexpensive
Walmart frames? They could bring a favorite photo(s) from this summer and you could have all types of stickers, papers, precut mats, etc that relate to summer. They could pick a background paper, then the mats, then stickers, etc. Have these laid out in a row and they go down the line and pick out what they need. They could add shapes with the punches. They could make a journal box and write about it. They could punch out a title or use stickers. They could tear paper pieces to add to it. If you don't want to use the frames, they could mount this paper on a 12 x 12, leaving a nice border on one edge and decorage the border or put letters there. They would go home with a completed memory to hang in their room and you would still have time for games, food, gifts, etc. This could hold their interest better.
You could even have them help create a party page for your daughters scrapbook--have them bring a picture of themselves that they can cut, mat, decorate, etc. that would fit on a piece of paper you would give them. If you do 12 x 12 books, you could have 6 x 6 paper ready for them to decorate. This would be a good thing to do when they get done with their page or to work on until everyone arrives. If some finish that, perhaps they could work together to create a poster that could go to a nursing home.
For
invitation, I would make it look like a scrapbook page using 8 1/2 x 11 paper. You could make one and copy it.
For
papers--I would use left over small scraps that you have. Buy an economy pack as Deb suggested if you are doing a book or I know our Hobby Lobby and Michaels both have papers on sale right now that would work good if you are doing only one page.
Stickers--go with the theme that you choose (if you decide to do the small books, I would pick a theme to use to save on materials you have to purchase and fighting over who gets what).
Deb had good ideas about having adult helpers for using cutters, etc. Girls can handle punches, but some may have to be shown how to use and to only use one piece of paper at a time, etc.
Games.
**Take some old time favorites and revamp. For example instead of pin the tail on the donkey, do "pin the picture in the frame on the page".
**A fun one is to take tear or cut newspaper into strips. Put an inexpensive goodie in the middle and start wrapping paper around. Tape other goodies--suckers, stickers, etc--to the strips every so often. Keep wrapping until you have a ball.Then play music as the girls sit in a circle and pass the ball around. Everytime you stop the music--or you could say "scrapbook", whoever has the ball gets to unwrap until they find a goodie. They take the goodie, back out of the circle a little and the ball goes around again. If you put in enough for the ball to go around once, the last person in the circle gets whatever is left. You can do enough for each girl to get two if you want--when it has gone around to everyone once, they get back in circle and go again. Suckers are good as they keep kids busy while the ball is still going around.
Just some thoughts.
Good luck, have fun, and let us know how it goes!
