Life's A Beach!

Aloha, my fellow crafters!

As I said in my last post, I survived my 13-year old's beach party this past weekend! If you missed seeing the invitations, you can view the post for them HERE.

Here we go:

Here's the party crew in front of the

 fabulous Oriental Trading beachy backdrop!

(Ok, so it was basically a plastic tablecloth split in

3 parts which lead me to LOTS of photo-editing

to make it look like a real backdrop, but it worked!)

I picked up these cute wave-like mini cupcakes from Target

and decorated them with handmade toppers using

Scrappy Moms' Sun Kissed Stamp set - love that set!

Here's the powder room decorated in the beach theme!

My daughters made these Cricut creations using

the Life Is A Beach cartridge and Stickles.

They also made flowers for the party room

which you might spot in the party pics below.

We had a tropical hand soap, lotion and candle

all from Bath & Body Works to decorate the sink!

Also in the powder room is my Creative Memories

display frame. I decided last minute to add a photo of the

birthday girl when she was 1-year old at the beach!

Her friends really got a kick out of it!

The food served with shovels! And yes, those are

"Goldfish" swimming in that salsa- LOL!

The utensil caddy also had straws

and umbrellas for their drinks!

Here's the Goldfish Bar!

We had Pizza, Parmesan, Flavor Blast Cheddar,

Colored & Pretzel! The little trays were $1.50 for 12 of them

(6 fish 6 crabs) on clearance at Oriental Trading -Woot! Woot!

We usually have this Tiki bar on our enclosed

sun room, but the birthday girl talked her Dad into

carrying it down to the party room. Such a Daddy's Girl! 

I must say it made a nice addition to the decor! We also

had a light up palm tree in a corner (see tug pic below).

Here is the dessert and gift table!

How lucky was it that I found a tropical pattern

for a 13th birthday? TOTALLY lucky!!

The candy bar!

We had Swedish fish, sugary orange slices,

tropical-colored Sixlets & Starbursts in the reds!

The palm tree tray had mini sugar cookies from Target.

We also gave out Popsicles after the fast-paced games

and had ice cream cups to serve with the mini cupcakes.

I've found that so much gets wasted at parties like this,

so I think mini is the way to go! And the ice cream cups were

a convenience in not having to scoop ice cream and deal

with the mess. Would definitely go that route again. And to my

surprise, the girls really liked them and wanted the tiny

wooden spoons that came with the cups - LOL!

The large sand buckets on the left were prizes.

They were filled with full-sized tropical scented 

Bath & Body Works shower gel, lotion & lip gloss

all 75% off right after Christmas. I think it was seeing these

items at B&BW that gave me the beach party idea. The favors

are to the right in the photo. More pics & deets of those below.

Elimination beach volleyball!

Whoever made the beach ball drop to the ground,

either by a bad hit or not getting to it, was out. We eliminated

until we had a volley between 2 girls & then got a single winner.

The net was actually fish net purchased

in my order from Oriental Trading.

Musical Beach Towels!

This was just like musical chairs, but each player had to

"strike a pose" on the beach towel once they got to one.

Down to three contestants and just 2 towels!

Tug-Of-War!

We made a dolphin using the Cricut Life Is A Beach

cartridge and hooked it to the rope with a paper clip.

Each team was trying to land the dolphin on their towel.

The girls totally pulled their muscles out & got into this game!

The girls also did a round of limbo, but I video'd it and haven't

successfully extracted any stills from it yet. That was fun, too!

Here's the birthday girl opening gifts "at the beach"- LOL!

And we just had to send our guests off

with a remembrance of their beachy time together!

Where did I get the items for the favor?

Bath & Body Works of course!

The lotions, anti-bacs with tye-dye holders,

Daquiri lip glosses and nail files were all on sale pretty cheap

at B & BW. The "Icy Breeze"mints were in a package of 4

from the dollar store. I was going to go with bubble gum, but

at this age many of the girls have braces, so gum is a no-no.

The pails were from Oriental Trading, and came with little

sand tools. I used the shovels for decorations to the food.

When the pails first arrived, I didn't like how small they were,

but they ended up working out perfectly for what I put in them.

I used vinyl and the Cricut Life Is A Beach cartridge font

for the personalizing of the pails. The tags were printed on my

computer (back message) using Beach Type font downloaded

from the Internet & stamped with Scrappy Moms'

"Mahalo" stamp from their Sun Kissed set for the front.

The ribbons were in my stash,

but purchased from Michael's last year.

Here are all 12 in a colorful rainbow!

We did have 3 girls that were not able to attend, so I gave

pails to my non-bday daughter & her friend that was over.

And then that left one pail for me - LOL!

I have had lots of positive feedback from the girls' parents,

so I think I can officially consider it a successful event!

I am entering this in Decorate to Celebrate's "Anything Goes" Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by and getting through this very photo-heavy post! Have a great day!