BEACH BALL PARTY

This beach ball party has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #BringTheTropicsHome #CollectiveBias

We talked about going on vacation once Michael got his degree. After the year we had, we needed to go somewhere as a family. Maybe somewhere tropical. Possibly a cruise. The where was not terribly important so long as we got a break from the daily grind.

We even started a vacation fund!

Renovating the family room did not slow us down. We continued to plan the getaway we all deserved. We could feel the sun on our skin and smell the beach.

And then the kitchen renovation began and quickly consumed our lives. To be honest, I’m not sure if the vacation fund still exists or if it was ‘loaned’ to our kitchen project. At this point, it doesn’t matter because we are chained to the project.

So I got planning a family day that would bring the tropics to our backyard. One day away from the chaos. No construction. No video games. No laptops.

Honestly, planning a beach ball party isn’t all that difficult. If I can manage without a kitchen or a place to do a lot of complex party projects, it should be a breeze for all of the party planners out there with kitchen sinks and living rooms free of refrigerators.

BEACH BALL PARTY FOOD:

I’m not sure why desserts come so naturally, but they do. The beach ball cookies are store bought sugar cookies, topped with the packaged frosting you always see me use in my tutorials.

Picture this… I’m sitting at the kitchen table, planning the menu for our beach ball party, and come up with vegeta-balls.

Vegetables. Beach balls. Vegetaballs. Get it?

Yeah, my family didn’t either.

BEACH BALL PARTY FAVORS:

The beauty of these jar of treasure party favors was how little work they required from me, and they doubled as an activity for the kids. Which translated to less time crafting and more time sleeping the ~~night~~ week before the party.

To save you some time, here are the printables for the ‘I hope you had a ball’ tags and the ‘grab your tools and dig for jewels’ sign.

TREASURE JAR TUTORIAL:

Supplies needed:

Some type of container (I used jars from my local dollar store.)
A variety of small toys and trinkets (shells, balls, etc.)
Scissors
Hole punch
Any type of string that has been collecting dust in your craft closet.
I hope you had a ball tags
Fabric squares (I used felt but any type of fabric that is no thicker than felt should work.)
And the obvious, a sandbox.

Use the round insert to secure the fabric square to the lid. I put a lid in each of the tool kits so the kids didn’t misplace them during the hustle and bustle.

Cut out the ‘I hope you had a ball’ favor tags and punch a hole in one end so you can tie them to the jars.

Bury the small toys and trinkets however you want and let the kids go to town. Sort of. One of the first things out of Michael’s mouth was about the number of items available, and what if one kid takes all three balls, so I put a limit on each trinket.

BEACH BALL PARTY ACTIVITIES:

The cherry on the top of this backyard staycation is that it’s okay for beach balls to throw up all over your yard. Everywhere. Beach balls of all shapes and sizes. Don’t discriminate. The more beach balls, the merrier.

And when they got bored with the sandbox and beach balls, there were water balloons galore. But not just any water balloons. He wanted every mom’s nightmare, the water balloons filled with dye that you see advertised during (what seems like) every single cartoon. Bravo, commercials. You win.

If you judge a party by the filth it produces, this one is worthy of a giant beach ball trophy. The dye from the water balloons. The pool that morphed into a mulch soup. The muddy prize each child received at the bottom of the ‘water’ slide.

Not to mention, tiny humans are incapable of keeping their towels away from the water and off the ground. Which pretty much eliminated the tropical oasis I had created for our family day.

That is, until it was time to do the laundry. The laundry that Michael so willing did because the aroma of all®’s Fresh Tropical Mist™ takes him to his happy place. He might have drifted off while battling tough kid stains, but he eventually had to leave the laundry room and return to his reality of drywall and sawdust.

I stumbled upon my own tropical mist in a bottle at the Dollar General that’s so close to my house I could walk to it. Yanno, if I walked to anything further than my vehicle. To find NEW fresh tropical mist in store near you, visit all®’s website and click Where to Buy! And don’t forget to take your coupon.