Making It! Spa Edition

Gratuitous shot of the
birthday girl.

This past weekend, in celebration of my daughter's seventh birthday, we hosted a sleepover. Despite my incredible hesitation and fear of this event, we actually had a lovely time - and the girls were in bed before eleven. I have a feeling that no one told them what a sleepover was and for that, I am forever grateful. 

In any case, Brynna wanted a spa party for her birthday and since we are doing everything on the cheap right now, we had to make spa a completely low-cost theme. Which, I didn't think would be nearly as easy as it was.

Enter Pinterest. Not only did I get lots of great ideas from Pinterest, but when I was stuck, I just searched and come up with all kinds of ideas. Here's the rundown on the items that I made:

Treat bowls of ice cream. 

1. Favors - Thanks to Dollar Tree, the favor bowls contained a bath pouf, a washcloth, a pair of fingernail clippers, an emory board and a nail file, a set of toe separators, a small mirror and a chapstick. And the total cost per treat bowl: $3.66. I think that's pretty impressive. Pinterest had the idea of using a sundae glass and making the treats look like ice cream. Genius! But, since I couldn't find sundae glasses for what I deemed to be a decent price, I went with little plastic bowls. They turned out pretty cute, if not quite as cute as the original.

The spa girls with their avacado masks. 

2. Avacodo Facials - I did them in the food processor like the original author suggested, but they were still a little clumpy. It was fine. The girls loved them. Add in the cucumber slices on their eyes and they were in seventh heaven.

3. Pedi's - I started off with a dishpan of warm water and scented Epsom salts and after a brief soak, did a sugar scrub, followed by painting of the nails. The girls were pretty confounded by the whole process, but loved it. And there are leftover Epsom salts for baths for me!! Oh, and leftover sugar scrub that I am currently using every time I wash my hands. 

Really glittery body glitter.

4. Body Glitter - Actually, this wasn't my project, but the girls'. I put the aloe in the container and let them add and stir the glitter. The end result is wicked glittery, but hopefully, they will enjoy it. 

5. Make your own pizzas - I actually got this idea from a commercial at the last minute. I used a package of large, flaky biscuits in the tube and rolled them out a little flatter and a little wider and then gave the girls bowls of canned spaghetti sauce, mini pepperonis, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, and cheese. The girls constructed their own pizzas, I baked them and Voila, supper! It was actually really good and the girls enjoyed the pizza a lot. Furthermore, all three of these girls typically refuse to eat anything but cheese pizza and while I think I was the only one to end up with mushrooms, they all stepped out of their comfort zones a little. Baking will do that for you.

See, Brynna is the brand name and
the color is Happy Bday Pink.
I swear that's what it says.

6. And speaking of baking - the cake - I almost always bake the girls' cakes because I just can't stomach paying that much for something that tastes like a solid lump of sugar. Even cake out of a box is better than cake out of grocery store bakery in my opinion. Of course, I suck at it. Although I work really hard at cake decorating, they are usually unmitigated disasters. This one, of course, was no exception, but Brynna thought it was cute. (It's a bottle of nail polish if you can't tell.)

All in all, this was a lot of fun, and I was amazed at how little I spent to have so much theme related activity. I think the final amount was about $80 for everything, including food. 

So, what do you think? Ready to throw your own spa party?