Tween Spa Party

I'm a little behind on my blogging.  I've been working on my book and I'm so excited to announce that I am getting a book published! Rebel Princess will be out June 2014.  I will post a picture of the cover as soon as my publisher sends it to me.  I'll blog more about the book when the release date gets closer.  Needless to say, I am very excited.

I've been meaning to post my daughter's birthday party for months.  (The green grass and shorts should give you an indication as to how long!)

For my daughter's 12th birthday, she wanted a spa party.  We decided to keep it simple.  See the decorations on the side of the house?  That was all the decorating and we even already had them in the basement.  Party's don't need to be extremely elaborate to be fun. 

I did secure the table clothes with an elastic band, as you can see in the picture.  That was to keep the cloth from blowing away.  Worked like  a charm and it's kind of cute too.  Win! My daughter's friends have faces.  I just blurred them out because they're not my kids.  I blurred my daughter's face too, just so she wouldn't feel left out. They're all adorable.  You'll have to take my word for it.

The first activity was to decorate shopping bags. I got fabric markers and rulers with lettering.  They all put their names on their bags so there wasn't any confusion.  I was surprised at how long they all took to decorate their bags.  They spent a lot of time chatting about boys and camps that were coming up. They also sang funny parodies.  Twelve year old girls are too fun.  The bags turned out very cute and they were excited to take them home.  I found the canvas bags on Amazon in bulk.

Next, they filled their bags with goodies.  I found scented hand sanitizer at Bath and Body works for a dollar each.  We also found a 12 pack of flavored lip gloss for a few dollars at a party store.  Then we added all sorts of chocolates because my daughter insisted that girls needed chocolate at a spa party.

Once their bags were filled (and their mouths), we played a game of musical toes.  The pink table cloth isn't really necessary, but I thought some girls might not like sitting on grass.  It also made it easier if a bottle of polish was dropped.  For this game, I got a 20 piece lot of nail polish from Amazon for about $20. (The price has gone up since then.) The girls picked a color and I turned on some music.  When the music stopped, they painted a toe nail.  A few of the girls wanted to do finger nails instead.  I let them pick.  They all ended up with super cute multicolored nails. They got a little silly so it spread onto their toes too. 

I you're thinking of doing something like this, be sure to have polish remover handy.  Several girls wanted to remove the polish they had before painting with new colors. I had a little basket with all the polish, a bottle of remover, and cotton. It was nice doing it outside so we didn't have to worry about spills or getting remover on the carpet. 

After the game, I had them each add a bottle of polish to their bags.

Instead of cake, we did cute little cupcakes and ice cream bars.  For the cups, we put temporary tattoos on plastic cups.  They looked pretty fancy.  Most of the girls took their cup home instead of throwing it away.  I froze green punch in a star shaped ice cube tray and poured the lemon lime soda over it.  It was a huge success. It was cute and tasted really good.  I also had plain water available for the girls who didn't like soda.  The frozen punch worked well in water too.

I worried that we wouldn't have enough activities, but the girls spent a lot of time chatting, singing, playing with balloons, and taste testing chocolates so it filled up most of the time.  Once my daughter opened her presents and all the cupcakes were gone, the two hours were over and it was time for the girls to go home.

It turned out to be quite a successful party. The girls had a great time and I didn't spend a boatload of cash.  Win!