Birthday Blast! Surf’s Up! Beach Parties Rock!

Adora is certainly no stranger, here in my blog, as she has previously shared a great craft idea on a DIY photo frame and was also part of the 2 weeks of creative fun series. :)

This time, she is back again to share some tips and fun ideas on organizing a beach party!


Adora
Warning: If you are the kind that has is a little OCD, this post will probably not appeal to you. But if you’ve got but a tiny budget and enjoy going with the flow, a beach party is a great idea! Warning: There are no pictures of fancy party favours (because there were no fancy party favours), no 10kg cake, no jugglers, no magicians, no bouncy castles (you get the drift). Chillax is the word.

We did a beach party (and not beach themed) at East Coast Beach for our little girl’s 3rd birthday. A fair bit of planning went into it – we made something like 3 trips to the beach in question to find the perfect spot, and an additional trip to Sentosa to collect sand. 


Fun and Games
We really wanted a party where people could arrive at any time and yet enjoy the full party. So we had 2 stations – 1 for games and 1 craft station – so that people could enjoy them as and when they wanted.


The game station was basically a fishing game that didn’t require any instructions. We used chopsticks and twine for the fishing rod and little plastic fish from Daiso, glued on little magnets and that was it. The kids had a blast!

For the craft corner, we had photo frames laid out with the individual kids’ names, and invited them to try their hand at sand art (real sand!). Easy-to-follow instructions were on the back of the photo frames, and no one had any trouble doing the craft. We wanted a craft that was 1) related to the theme and 2) easy to do without any explanation, because we weren’t sure how exposed the children were to craft (some may be more familiar, and some may not).

Seashells were picked on a previous occasion, as was sand. Just in case it rained the day before. If you’re planning this for an older child, you may like to include looking for seashells as part of the activity. But this was a party for 3 year-olds and we just knew that once set loose, they’d be hard to rein back in!


We also made a hula girl out of compressed foam (it took less than 2 hours to put together!) and left it around for guests to snap pictures with.

Food
We provided finger food, which was good because no one really has the stomach for a big meal at the beach. All of it was kid-friendly. We used a stone bench to lay out breadsticks, small pastries, fishy biscuits, fruit and drinks. They all had sea/beach related names too. Like Nervous Nemo’s cups of fruity fun, King Neptune’s thirst quenchers, Catch of the Day gold fish bites and Missy Mermaid’s gorgeous biscuits. Remember to provide drinks to keep everyone hydrated!

Venue
You can’t book a pavilion at the beach though you can book the BBQ pits. We decided to go early to ‘chope’ one of them and arrived an hour before the party - party was at 10am to 12noon. We chose that timing to avoid 1) the hot sun and 2) bypass everyone’s nap timings!

We chose one that was relatively near the food centre so that people could pop over if they wanted. There was also a toilet relatively nearby. Other than that, we brought everything ourselves.

We really enjoyed our beach party, and just know that you will have fun at yours too!

About Adora

Adora is mum to Poppy, 4 and Calla, 3.5 months. She is a freelance writer for parenting magazines and runs Buggy Bee Kids, a crafts-for-kids business. She enjoys cheap chocolate, smelling her baby’s neck, and would really like a good night’s sleep. Adora blogs at http://www.gingerbreadmum.blogspot.com/  

 
 
 
 
 

This marks the second post in the Birthday Blast series where blogger mums share their birthday party planning tips and ideas. Coming up next is Justina Tey who will be blogging about an "Under the Sea" party!