bath bomb

Planning a Mermaid/Under the Sea Themed Party? Dollar Tree To The Rescue!

Abby H.

I’m working on planning a mermaid-themed party for a certain little girl in my house. Thankfully, Dollar Tree has some great supplies on the cheap! These are available in-store and online.

First off, check out these cool iridescent shell-shaped eggs. Perfect for hiding candy or tiny gifts like bracelets or rings. In the store, there are a lot of beaded necklaces, like there.

There are mermaid-themed party paper goods too. Plates, cups, and napkins. One thing I love about Dollar Tree is that with the rising costs of everything, I’m able to host cute themed parties and stay on budget.

I’m loving these cute mermaid buckets, they would be great for goodie baskets. If you aren’t sure what to put in them, I’d suggest mermaid facial masks, nail polish in “mermaid” colors- there are tons of colors in stores, mermaid tail shaped hand soaps,  Nail art sets, nail files (there are ocean/mermaid themed ones in the stores, and bath bombs- some stores have mermaid tail-shaped bath bombs. All locations have bath bombs in various scents and sizes.

Don’t forget to hit up the home decor area to look for beach, ocean, and mermaid themed signs.

As for snacks and menu, we’ll be serving:

  • Strawberry lemonade, complete with frozen strawberries (available in the stores) as our beverage.
  • Cold Pasta Salad using shell pasta (recipe is forthcoming)
  • Goldfish crackers
  • Fresh Fruit cut into star shapes- Watermelon, pineapple, apple (with a hole cut in the middle where I remove the apple core)

I love using the plastic “crystal” serving ware from Dollar Tree too. It makes the party look fancy, without worrying about little hands breaking anything special or vintage.

And for those wondering, we only invite 4-6 of Bitty’s good friends to parties. I can’t have a house full of 20+ kiddos. My neighbors would never forgive me. We may have a viewing of The Little Mermaid while we eat.

And of course, I’ll be making invitations on Canva for free, saving the image as a PDF, and either printing them out to hand out or emailing them to friends parents/guardians.

DIY Tutorial: Bathbombs!

Abby H.
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They turned out pretty good!

In my goodie bag from Wow Summit a few months ago, we all received CBD oil balm from +CBDOil, and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. It has a coconut oil base, so for me it was too greasy to use as a topical pain relief (I hate having greasy skin, and stuff like Tiger Balm and Ben Gay make my skin crawl). I had been using it as lip balm, but really, I didn’t need that much lip balm.

 

I have a few books on making your own beauty products, so I looked for a recipe for bath balms, as I seemed to recall that they called for oil to bind the other ingredients. I also did a quick internet search. I took 5 recipes and sort of Frankensteined together a really good recipe.

Most of these ingredients you have in your pantry already. Citric Acid (also called sour salt) can be purchased at Sprouts or whole foods in the bulk section, or in a grocery store with a large Jewish Food section. Or, of course… There is Amazon.

I weighed my dry ingredients using a food scale, so these measurements are by weight.

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Ingredients:

  • 4 ounces (by weight) Baking Soda
  • 2 ounces (by weight) Corn Starch
  • 2 ounces (by weight)  Citric Acid
  • 2 ounces (by weight) Salt (You can use Epsom salt, table salt, or Kosher salt)
  • 2 T. Water (more or less make be needed depending on the weather conditions at the time you make the bath bombs)
  • 1 T. +CBDOil Balm (it has peppermint oil in it, so I opted to add no additional essential oil)
  • Optional (but fun): natural food coloring. I used Watkins. Start with a few drops and add more until you get the color you want.

 

Directions:

  1. In a glass bowl, mix all dry ingredients together.
  2. Add balm, and stir until it starts to clump.
  3. Slowly add water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  4. Add food coloring and stir.
  5. You can either use bath bomb molds like these, but I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup. I packed the cup, let it sit for a few minutes, invert, and gently tap the bottom of the cup until the bomb releases.
  6. Let them sit overnight before using.
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The Finished product, waiting to cure overnight. 

This recipe makes 4-6 bath bombs, depending on how big you make them.

If you don’t want to use CBD Oil, you can substitute coconut oil, and add in 10-15 drops of your favorite essential oil.

A few of my favorite Essential Oil Combinations include:

  • Lavender and Vanilla
  • Orange and Clove
  • Rose and Almond

Talk Back: Have you ever made bath bombs? Did you like it?