Beach Bash Birthday

Be prepared for a long, picture heavy post ahead!   Well it was finally the day of the Beach Bash Birthday for my now 10 yr old daughter.. (waah! she is my last one, now all are in double digits!!)   We started the party by posing with the surfboards we made,  and beach balls in the family room. 

Disclosure: Since I wrote this post, I have become an ambassador and affiliate for Oriental Trading.  I have used and loved their products for years.  The links to similar products used in this post are affiliate links.

I laid out a inexpensive polka dot tablecloth on the floor. I gave the look of a giant beach towel.    If you like the look of surfboards, but do not want to make your own, here are a few other fun options.  (cardboard surfboard stand up,  inflatable summer surfboard, surfboard backdrop )

We started the party with our craft. I thought I got a picture of the girls crafting, but realized when I downloaded my pics, that I had not.  They sat on the large beach blanket to make their fabric flip flops.  .  I bought each of the girls flip flops from the dollar store, and some really fun summer fabric at JoAnn fabrics.  While they were tying their fabric, I was finishing up a couple of details.   

Here is one of the finished pairs, that one of the girls immediately starting wearing.  She left them in the yard during the water fight. 

We played pin the wing on the flamingo.  The flamingo was made out of neon poster board.

While you can not play pin the tail on this jumbo inflatable flamingo, he could be the hit of the party and a great photo booth prop. 

We had some games planned for outside, but it was literally a zillion degrees out.  (in the mid 90s!) and it was just too hot to do much.  We did not put up the volleyball/badmitton net because of heat.  We did have  a mini obstacle course, but made sure to  include the sprinklers.  I had the girls put on goggles and an inner-tube, (it was too hot for the swim wings) and then go to only  a couple of stations. 

They threw hula hoops over the hula girl (all bought at the dollar store)

They fed tiki man small plastic balls..  Since it was so hot (and windy!) tiki man just ended up being propped up  because the board kept blowing in the wind. 

We threw beach balls in the crab, but ended up chasing them in neighbors yard most of the time.   When they were down with that game,  the girls just had fun running in the sprinklers and shooting water from the water tubes. 

We also played a few games with water balloons, which was a lot of fun.   They then had a water balloon fight with the rest of the balloons. 

Young girls can make a pet or a baby out of almost anything.  During the water balloon fight, Kara decided she wanted to keep one of her balloon "babies".   She named him Bob.  A little while later she asked for a band aid.  I thought someone might have been hurt.  Turns out the band aid was for Bob, he had  sprung a leak.

I wish I had this Beach Ball Inflatable Cooler during the party. It matched our theme and I would have filled it with drinks for the kids to help keep them cool in addition to the water games we played. 

I was able to finally  find some frisbees the day before the party at Michaels. We used these under the plates on the table, and in the goody bags 

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Chicken salad Crabby Sandwiches, hot dogs and chips were on the menu for lunch.

I also served a super fun  watermelon shark  that I saw on Sun Scholars .  Mine was more cute than scary, because I did not get the angle of the mouth sharp enough, but the kids loved it anyway.

Since it was the 4th of July weekend, we also served 4th of July fruit "sparklers".

There was a dessert table, decorated with large paper lanterns that I found on clearance at Target.  If you like the look of the lanterns, but would prefer they look like beach balls, I found some here. 

The girls ate Beach Party Marshmallow Pops, 

beach themed candy, 

beach themed party mix 

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I made this cupcake stand, and you can see how here.  If you would like a cute surfboard cupcake stand, you can see that one here

I am a little bummed that I did not have one of  the details for the cupcakes. A few weeks ago Kara was playing with the paper umbrellas.  I told her they were for the party, and then put them in a safe place.  I can not remember where the safe place is!  When I realized I could not find them, I asked Kara's dad to buy some more.  The dollar store had sold out of them!  He checked another store as well,  but they did not have them either.   While the umbrellas would have been cute,  the cupcakes still made my daughter smile. 

They each got to pick out a beach bag  that I found at the dollar store.   The favors inside of their bag were their decorated flip flops,  the frisbees from lunch, a visor and a bottle of bubbles.  They were supposed to get a glow bracelet, but I didn't realize until afterwards that they did not get handed out.   The bags and all of favors only totaled about $5 per child, and it was items they will hopefully be able to use.

This was definitely a fun party, and one of our favorites!  

If you are having a beach themed party, here are some items you might enjoy

Surf's Up Direction Sign

Inflatable Flamingo Coasters

Beach Ball Garland

Flip Flop String Party Lights

Surf Board Plastic Tablecloth Roll