Girly Spa Party

My baby girl turns 7 in a couple of weeks.  With summer birthday around a holiday, we have chosen to hold her party a couple of weeks early.  This works great for being able to pass invites out at school and catching friends before the frenzy of summer travel and activities.

This year we did a spa party.  Back in February a local spa had a half-price deal on one of the local deal sites for a party for 6 girls.  The price was right and the wheels were in motion for a fun party.

With such a fun inspiration and theme we set out to create a fun day for the girls.  Given that the party was limited to my daughter and just 5 of her besties, it was easy to go all out.  Couple that with some amazing clearance deals from the dollar section at Michael's and a few craft projects it was an amazing party!

To start, I searched Pinterest and created an inspiration board.  We loved these nail polish invitations so that is what we started with.  They were a definite hit!

This was our starting off point.  We next started going crazy with the pink, black and zebra theme.

The party started at the spa with painted nails, edible chocolate facials, up-dos, face paint, body glitter art and making their own bath salts.  If you have a spa near you, I would totally look into doing this.  The girls had a ball being pampered!

Then we headed home for a fun photo shoot. I scoured my daughters room for hats, boas, sunglasses and more. The girls glammed up and I took their pictures - the entire group, BFF's and individuals. The back drop was simply a dollar store pink plastic table cloth stapled to the wall and embellished with some black & pink crepe paper. I quickly edited a few photos using PicMonkey and sent them off to Walgreen's. Each of the girls got to take their photos home with them.

Pizza and cake were a big hit.  The girls loved the nail polish cake.  I used 4 6" cake rounds, stacked up and topped with a stack of 3 cupcakes for the wand lid. The surprise for the cake was in the layers.  I did 2 layers of zebra stripes using rings of chocolate and strawberry cake sandwiched between a pure chocolate and pure strawberry layer.  The girls loved this.

Decorations were kept simple but the highlight was the handmade nail polish pinata.  I had seen a similar one online for approximately $23 (after shipping) and knew I could make one for way less.  Using a structure made out of a single sheet of poster board, I taped it together, added a couple layers of paper mache and covered with strips of tissue paper that had been cut to look like fringe.  Easy 2 hour project (over the course of 2-days due to drying time) for less that $4.  Technically it was free because I already had everything in my craft room to make this!

We didn't end up using the pinata since we simply ran out of time with all of the other activities.  My daughter is excited to use it as a decoration in her room.

One of the first gift bag projects I came up with was a hand mirror.  Hoping to find a pink mirror at the dollar store with no luck I found these great black ones.  I simply used some pink zebra scrapbook paper cut to the shape of the mirror and applied with a couple layers of decoupage.  The girls loved these (and so did I).

I lucked out one afternoon at Michael's when I found a variety of items including bath fizzies, bath poufs, small pink frames and these great journals for 25 cents each.  Using some zebra scrapbook paper, I simply cut a new cover to size and used spray glue to adhere them to the journal to fit the theme.  Total cost of the gift bags was under $3 each.

This left room to do a couple of craft projects to help fill the time.  This was a sleep over party and our spa appointment was at noon so we had a lot of time to fill.  The girls made ribbon flip flops using some ribbon I found at the discount fabric store in town (3 rolls for $1 - score) and pink flip flops I found on sale at Michael's for $1.25 each.  I also bought some $1 wood picture frames and 50 cent craft paint to make a photo frame for one of the photo booth pics!

Finally, since no party is complete with out thank you cards, I took one of my daughters photos and created a thank you card using PicMonkey.  (Have I said how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE PicMonkey - well I really do!)

How fun is the posterize effect with one of the newest features - sketchedy mats.  So fun!  Any who, we sent these to Walgreen's and will be mailing them out this week!

Now that the party is over, it is time to actually get ready for her actual birthday! AND I NEED A SPA DAY!!!

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Dive-In Theater

Summer is in full swing and we could NOT wait to start the pool party season.  This year we decided to put a huge twist on our pool party...our very own dive-in movie theater.  This project got my husband very excited and before I knew it, he had hit the hardware store for all of the supplies.

The beauty of this fun addition to our backyard...it was under $40!!!!  A few PVC pipes, connectors, grommets, zip ties and a simple canvas drop cloth.  We were in business.

Now, the process was quite simple but the design could use some fine tuning.  As you can see from the photo, we placed a few grommets around the edge of the canvas painters tarp and created a frame using PVC pipe.  We placed a support down the middle to help with stability.  The bottom of the legs has a T-bar connector.  Since we placed it against the wall, we only used one pipe pointing away from the wall.

This screen and design is most definitely a work in progress.  It works and we are having a blast but it is amateur for sure.  Here is what we have learned (so far)...

It must be almost completely dark before we start the movie.  We have a pretty good, professional projector but it still needs to be dark.  You also do not want bright light behind your screen.  It is probably best against the house or a large wall or hedge.

Stability is a concern with our design.  With even the slightest wind, the screen is not self supporting and would likely take flight with a strong gust.  To deal with this, we placed the screen against our back wall and used cement pavers to hold the base.  We also utilized bungee cords to hold the screen against the wall.

The bungee cords have created another issue due to the flexibility of the 3/4" PVC pipe.  We are still working to address this issue.  Our plan is to put a metal pipe "inside" the PVC pike to create more stability.  As the bungee pulled on the PVC pipe, it began to rip the canvas where the grommets were placed.  I will update following our next dive-in movie to see if this added stability worked.

The movie set-up is quite easy as long as you have access to a projector.  Our set-up includes a projector, a DVD player, and a stereo receiver with speakers.  The projector is something that my husband purchased several years ago to do seminars for work - he normally is using it attached to his computer for PowerPoint presentations.  Eventually, we would like to place permanent wires/speakers around our pool but for now, we run wires and place speakers on each side of the pool.

We have had a couple of parties so far and are having a blast.  With guests watching the movie both in the water and on deck, everyone has had a blast.  So far all of our movies have been family friendly but we look forward to a few action films too!

What are your movie suggestions for our Dive-In Movie Theater?

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Our Not So Bummer Summer!

We have had a full week of summer vacation and I can't believe everything we have done already!  Granted, we counted and while Phineas and Ferb tell us there are 104 days of summer vacation - we only have 74!  Not that many when you make a huge list of everything you want to accomplish.  Then throw in swim team which has daily practice and 2-3 meets a week and the time flies!

My 5 and almost 7 year old are very visual and want to SEE that they have actually been doing a lot of things.  So I decided to make a chalk board sign to list and mark off our summer fun activities.

Awhile back I had picked up a can of chalkboard spray paint on sale and was waiting for the right project to use it.  Then it hit me, our Summer Fun List!  Perfect!  Of course, I did not have an appropriate size piece of wood in the garage so I headed to Home Depot. 

I immediately went to the back to check out the "cull lumber" bin.  Cull lumber is cut-offs of boards that a customer does not want.  The best part - they are 51 cents a piece at our store - no matter the size.  You often need to inspect these boards as they may be warped, have a lot of knots or other flaws.  But generally speaking, you can find some great bargains. 

On this particular day, I found a beautiful piece of culled 1x12 that was 35" long - perfect for our Summer Fun chalkboard.  Another thing to note, they generally spray paint the end of the lumber to designate it as culled.  This was fine since I was planning to paint it anyway.

I love a project that ends up to be under $7 - chalkboard paint $4.97, board $.51 and colored chalk 1.99.

I took my list that I had put together and started to write them on the board.  As you can see, we have already checked off a number of items.

Here are a few pictures of some of our fun.  Most of this happened in just one day of "staying home".  I actually love a day when we can just hang out inside, avoid the insane desert heat here in Arizona and have some good old fashion creative play fun!

What have you been doing this summer?

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