Beach Themed Party

For this party the setting was a hotel with a large waterpark. When you opened the door from your room you were able to go straight to the pool area including volleyball, slides and a hot tub. I decided because of this I would plan my party with a beach theme. I mainly looked at Target and Walmart stores and a few local dollar stores for the decorations. My mom, Cindy and I also made a lot of the decorations ourselves. The room was fairly small so most of the decorations were wall ones. We cut out circles for beach balls, flip-flops and sea stars. In order to get a good flip-flop shape, we simply took our flip-flops and traced them. We cut them out, added a string to the top to act as the string on the real flip flop and added some bling. For the sea stars we took some star shapes that are sold at Michael's and Johann's. After tracing and cutting out the stars, I added a smiley face with googly eyes. For the beach ball I found cheap ball cut outs at a garage sale for $1 and hung them up.

For our food bowls we used red, green and yellow bowls we already owned. I think we had found these at Target. At Dollar General I found small plastic boxes that were great for the goody bags. Inside the goody bags I added a towel, a pair of flip flops, sun glasses and lotion.

I bought the lotion at Bath and Body Works in the Travel Size. This costs five dollars, but if you wait for a time when they are having a sale they will most likely be at 3 for $10.

The sunglasses I found in the Dollar Bins at Target. They were shudder shades just like this. 

During a sale in spring Target had $3 pairs of flip flops in zebra print and polka dots. Everyone got a pair to wear to the pool so they didn't have to go barefoot. 

The towels were the most expensive part of the goody basket. At Target they were about $10. I got a different striped color for every guest. These are great quality and after two years are still holding up.

Glow in the Dark Party

For my thirteenth birthday part I threw a Glow in the Dark party. I was super pumped, so I went totally crazy searching for things that glowed in the dark. Although I didn't buy a lot of these things, I found they had amazing reviews and that if I had had more time and more money, I think I probably would have. Oriental Trading was the best website to use while looking for glow in the dark decorations. I found cups, ducks, balls and animals. Below are some of the things I found for a reasonable price.

Glow in the Dark Shutter Shades, $8.25 per dozen

Glow in the Dark Slime, $10.00 per dozen

Glow in the Dark Ducks, $10.00 per two dozen

Glow in the Dark Balls, $6.25 per 48

Glow in the Dark Lizards, $5.25 per 48

Glow in the Dark Pony Beads, $8.25 per 2,000

Glow in the Dark Cups, $13.00 per dozen

The link to all of these is: http://www.orientaltrading.com/api/search?Ntt=glow+in+the+dark

I also found a lot of different trinkets looking in the dollar bins at Target and searching through buckets at stores such as Dollar General and the Dollar Tree. After finding the theme, I had to find the place. The year before I had had my birthday party at a water park hotel, but many of the pools were so packed my friends and I had only been able to play around in the kiddy pool, which was fun but still, we were twelve and weren't really too excited to be playing with two year olds. I looked around on the internet and found a great hotel for really cheap, and with a great pool area. The room had a loft area with a seperate bathroom and everything, so my mom could stay up there while us girls stayed on the lower level which included a TV, mini kitchen, couch, and dining table. We decided to order pizza and then had to decide on my decorations. I found many DIY ways to add glow in the dark to regular things like rocks and frosting. I didn't try the frosting due to the fact I was scared I would kill someone, so I'll leave that to you. :)


One thing I tried and succeeded at was adding glow in the dark pain to jars, which look like this. I bought some glow in the dark paint from Menards for about $8.00, dipped a marble, or you could use a bouncy ball, into the paint, then threw it in the jar and rolled it around (with the lid on). The effect didn't turn out as well as the one over there ---> did.




Another thing to try is taking 1 Liter bottles and breaking up glow sticks, sticking the lit up glow sticks into the bottle, setting them up in an unused part of the room, painting a ball with the glow in the dark paint mentioned above, and playing bowling. It's a simple game you could play to waste time while waiting for the food to arrive or while waiting for the other friends of the party to wake up.



At Target in the dollar bin I found some glow in the dark stars you can stick on the ceiling, but instead I stuck them all over a mirror in the kitchen. It looked really cool and at the end of the party everyone got to take some home. I still have them hanging in my room to this day. They were a great accent to the rest of the room.



At our local Dollar General I found bright pink and green bowls, buckets and cups I used for holding our chips, candies and the gift buckets. They were cheap and were good quality, plus they looked great.









Finally, for the goody bags, I included glow in the dark insects, a little journal with a black and white cover, pens from Staples that were different colors, sticky notes, bouncy balls from Target and those little squishy neon balls with faces on them sold at Target, the Dollar Tree and practically every other store. All in all, the party turned out great and the room was lit up 24/7 with glow in the dark and neon objects. My friends and I enjoyed it very much, and I didn't even break my families budget! If you want more information on glow in the dark objects or other party objects, go to http://pinterest.com/hannah_rose/party/.