Portable Picnic

 Here's a quick idea for a get together I threw last summer.  My family rented a beach house, and one of the meals I brought was lunch to take to the beach.  To make it a little more fun (and easy to carry), I bought these plastic containers at Party City (near the candy-sold for a dollar).  I put a sandwich, fruit, and chips in each ball, closed it up and then carried to them to the beach.

It was easy to pass out, and a vessel to hold the grub as we ate.

Mermaid Favor Buckets

 The gals in my family headed to the beach a few weeks ago to celebrate my Mom's bday.  Just to make it a little more festive, I brought some decorations for the beach house we rented, and I made a bucket for each gal.

 I personalized the buckets, a water bottle, and a bag (to carry our phones to the beach).  I also put in some favorite snacks, a drink holder, cotton candy ("ocean foam"), everyone's favorite candy, and some mermaid cookies I bought at Cookies By Design.

DIY Decorated Donuts

 Here's something I learned this year, you can DIY your own sprinkled donuts.  I saw it via Heidi Swapp a few months back and decided to give it a go.

I just grabbed some regular ol' glazed donuts, a can of icing, sprinkles and decorations.

 I put the icing in the microwave for 30 seconds (more than enough time).  Stirred.

 I dipped my donut in the bowl so the top was covered.  The first donut had those top bubbles, but the rest were smooth.  One can should easily do a dozen donuts.

 I added sprinkles (I found these on Etsy) and some other decorations to create my mermaid donuts (chocolate shells, and fondant mermaid tails-molds from Hobby Lobby).

It doesn't get much easier than this, and you can do this with any flavor of canned icing, or even add food coloring.  The icing was hard enough to hold the sprinkles in place, but soft enough to be donut- delicious!

Mermaid Cups

       I have had an exhausting, but fun summer.  I'm more than halfway to 'going back to work.'  So, I've been trying to get some projects completed in between a ton of travel.  This September I'm hosting several birthday parties, and one is at a beach house, so I'm making a few little projects, including these mermaid tail water bottles.

     I found these bottles at the 99 Cent Only Store, they go so perfect with this shiny vinyl, and I also found a mermaid tail piñata at the same store ($4 for that guy, but the cups were 99 Cents each).  I put each gals initial on one side and a tail on the other and I have little blue bags I'm going to fill with a few beach essentials....which I still have to figure out.  Lot's more to come on that and so many other projects, outings, trips, parties, and adventures!
     If you are a Cricut user, you may already know this, BUT if you don't, if you google whatever image you want and put the word 'free svg' there are so many things you can download without having to buy the files.  In this case I downloaded "mermaid tail free svg."  There are also some sites that will transform a jpeg to a svg for free, you just have to make sure it's for personal use so the copy right folks won't come after you!

Mermaid or Pirate Baby Shower

 I've been friends with Amber for well over a decade now.  She's expected baby #2 and this go 'round she decided to wait.  Since it's summer, her sister and I decided to throw her a shower that plays with the theme Mermaid or Pirate?  My pal Kelly made these adorable invites for me.

 Again, since it was a summer shower I was able to go crazy with desserts and I madea  collection of both mermaid and pirate themed desserts to serve.

 Last year I attended a shower and they had a poloroid camera where each guest had their picture taken, and then we made a scrapbook page with a message to mom and baby.  I knew Amber would love this (she's one of my last scrapbooking buddies).

 We each made a page and her sister said she would finish the album for Amber.  We had the guest decorate pages with either pirates or mermaids based on what they predict the baby will be.

 I made a bunch of banners I hung throughout my house as well.

 I also used beads someone gave me from mardi gras, shells, and coins to scatter around the house.

 We served all pirate and mermaid themed foods.  Canon Balls (meatballs), sumbarines (sub sandwiches), planks (crackers) and gold (cheese-served with little swords), crab legs (carrots), seaweed (spinach dip), seashells (pasta), and berried treasure (berries).

 We also served some blue punch in fish bowls.

 I made little mermaid straws.

 Amber's sister put together some adorable bubble bath.

 And bottled them in cute little bottles.

 All went so smoothly, but it helps when it's a sweet friend and easy going friends and family she's collected along the way.