The Spa Party: Perfect 10 Day Spa/Salon

I've managed to drag out the re-cap of my daughter's Spa Birthday party for a very long time! I hope you aren't bored to tears of it yet. One of the reasons I've been slow is that it is almost time for our June Blogger/Crafter's Night Out and I have been working on lots of frilly details for that! So excited to share!

The main event of the Spa Birthday was going to "The Perfect 10 Day Spa" for the girls to get pampered. I may have had to hire a little professional cleaning help, but I decided to turn my master bathroom into the Day Spa. It is bigger than a bathroom ought to be and has a large jetted tub. It seemed like the perfect place for the mess and salon atmosphere I was going for. I didn't get tons of pictures in here, because I was playing Glamour Shot photographer as well as facial aesthetician, but these poms adorned the entrance to the spa. My mom made the curtains for me a year or so ago, to give the option for a little privacy between the bedroom and bathroom. I love the softness they add.

I had unfulfilled visions of making a logo to match the invitations and cutting it out of vinyl with my Silhouette and attaching it to my mirror, to really make it feel like a salon. There were a few decorations, however!

These were entirely conceived of and created by the birthday girl, herself. I had cut out another project with my Silhouette, using a dark pink vinyl and had lots of scraps left-over. She did not like the idea of throwing them away, and set out to find something to do with them (I think that is genetic--from my mom!). Anyway, she traced these shapes with a black sharpie marker and decorated them with actual sparkly nail polish. She placed them on the walls of the bathroom, to help set the mood.

I didn't get a picture, but I set-up a cute table with a water dispenser and cucumber sandwiches for the girls to munch on as they awaited their turn for pampering. We rotated them through the following stations:

{Click below and keep reading for all of the details!}

Facials

I was hoping my sister-in-law, who is a trained aesthetician could come and do this part for me. Alas, she couldn't make it, but she did lend me her Clarisonic Pro Sonic Skin Cleansing Brush to use on the girls, which was very cool (It was very gentle, and they loved it). So I pretty much had to pretend that I knew what I was doing. I used a gentle cleanser on their faces with the brush, then if they wanted to--and they all did, I applied a homemade avocado mask (I think just mashed avocados and honey). I had them all go relax with the cucumbers on their eyes and let their mask soak in for a few minutes. It gave me just enough time to get the next girl to that point before I brought them back to wash of the mask and moisturize. We used this moisturizer by Ottilie & Lulu which was sent to me some time back for my daughter to try. It is designed for this age group and seems to work well on their young skin. My blogger-in-training (a.k.a daughter) is still supposed to write up her review for me some time. She's the one who's been using it, after all! 

Pedicures

This party simply couldn't have happened with out the help of some talented and kind friends--some of which I called kind of panicky last minute to help out! One of my friends, Janna, is not a professional nail tech, but has the same gear as one, and does a great job with nails, even adding rhinestones and flowers to the toes those who wanted those extra details! 

We had the girls soak their feet in my jetted tub and then took turns getting a salon-style pedicure. One of the girls even helped out and painted most of the other girls fingernails.

Hair

Again, my professional friend wasn't available to do hair (the one that rescued Tessa from her own haircut), so I called one that always has gorgeous hair herself and figured if her hair was so cute, she could handle 10 year old hair. Thankfully she was willing to jump in at the last minute and did a great job giving these girls really fun little up dos.

And when they were all dolled up, I transitioned from aesthetician to photographer, and started snapping pictures in our shower-turned-photobooth...

Glamour Shots

I should have had the girls all sign model releases so I could show you all of the gorgeous pictures I took of these cute girls. I just attached this fun bed sheet (Target clearance--now on my daughter's bed), to the wall of my shower. The sun was setting, but there was quite a bit of natural light on it from the glass block window facing this way.

Kira proudly modeled her birthday rhinestone shirt (despite my craft fails), and I was able to get lots of fun shots of each girl individually, as well as several small group shots of friends. I am going to (really soon...yikes!) get these pictures to the girls along with their thank you cards.

When they were all sufficiently pampered, we returned downstairs for salad bar, cake, piñata, and other birthday festivities. The girls really seemed to love the little day spa, and most of them hadn't spent much time in a real salon, so thought they were living it up! Honestly, all of us big girls involved were a little jealous. I think we'd all love it if someone threw a Spa Day birthday for us! Wouldn't you?