I've been busy! My baby brother, JR, turned 15th last week, and my birthday gift to him was a pool party. We had so much fun!!!
Believe it or not, it was kind of hard to find summery/beach related decor and toys at this time of year. Completely insane, since we live in a Caribbean Island! Won't ever understand that...But once I did, it was great, as most of them were on clearance! Woo-hoo!
I hit the web for inspiration for a super cool, teenage-approved pool party decor and toys, and this is what I came up with.
Lots of inflatables and balls for them to play, along with water guns, water balloons and beach balls. I got some plastic whistles that they could put on their wrist and get in the pool with. That was a big hit!
I placed a sand bucket with medium sized beach balls and lots of Sharpies for them to write/decorate their own beach ball. I got the idea from somewhere in Pinterest, and the idea is that they take them home as a party gift.
Most of the items were labeled with my Spanish version of the free Splash Bash Pool Party printable I found at The Celebration Shoppe. It was easy to customize in Photoshop. I printed them on photo paper and then laminated them.
Some blue and red pinwheels found at Wal-mart for like $.50, provided some bling to some of the decorations. Especially some jars with foam beach balls that I painted myself after finding Kelly's tutorial of a DIY Beach Ball Garland.
We had candy, chocolates, lemonade, chips and fresh popcorn.
For the paper beach balls, I just punched a 1 3/4 inch circle, which I then painted with Sharpies. Very quick and easy!
For food, we had sandwiches, fresh fruit and watermelon "popsicles" which I found super cool after discovering them in Melissa Camara Wilkin's Pinterest board, Fun for Toddlers . A couple of hours after the party had started, pizza arrived!
I had soda, lemonade and bottled water for the kids. And home made Sangria (made by moi) for the adults.
My favorite thing of the whole party was the Photo Booth! I got the idea from Pinterest, and I used some of the free printables from Creative Juice, as well as some I made myself using SCAL and my Cricut.
We had tons of fun posing with the props! To make them sturdier and sort of water proof, I did 1 hand of ModPodge on each prop.
I should mention that it was really cool of Domino's Pizza to let me order the pizzas 24 hours in advance, and got them delivered at a pre-arranged time. That was definitely a super time saver!
