I e-mailed her back and asked for pictures as well as for more information about the party so I could share with you. Her response was so descriptive, I just copied it for your perusal.

“I was looking on the internet for ideas and was thinking about a spa party for about eight 12 year old girls. We have a place locally that does this and it would be about $20 for just a scrub! I am pretty crafty, and when I came across your site, once I saw the Bella & Edward fragrance I knew I had to run with it. The kits looked so easy and economical I figured that was the way to go (and just get the fragrance separate).

I set up the dining room table ahead of time to keep organized and get them excited when they walked in. For each project, though, I did bring supplies into kitchen. First we did the body milk – I let them pump right into bottles halfway, drop in their fragrance, color & glitter (vampires sparkle you know!) then shake it up, then top off the bottle and re-shake. Next we did the scrub. While we were doing this I had the Vegan lip base (they are ‘vegetarian vampires’) melting in it’s jar in my chocolate melter. I did pipette that into the pots for them since it was hot. Lastly, I had given out a white washcloth and black hair tie and we made a face mask with yogurt and oatmeal which they put on with cucumber slices on their eyes.

They really had a blast and kept saying how fun it was. As they were done with each take-home product, I had a plastic ’shower caddy’ goody bag for them to put it in to not get mixed up with the others.

Thanks so much again! I will be back for sure!”

Michelle,
I had a good time reading about your experience. This sounds so fun! I wonder where I could round up a few 12 year olds for my own party!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

First, I need to explain what Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are. Artist Trading Cards are miniature works of art that are traded between artists or a variation of ATC called Art Cards, Editions and Originals (ACEO) are sold by artists. Artist Trading Cards are about the same size as baseball trading cards (2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches) and will fit into standard collector sleeves. You can use any type of paper as your base, most artists prefer to use card stock or a similarly heavy paper. You can design a card on the computer or draw it by hand using any thing you want. Colored pencils, markers, highlighters, watercolors, paints, makeup, dyes, pigments, nail polish, and many other things. You can also glue items onto your trading cards as long as the cards still can fit into collector sleeves.

On January 19th, I made a simple bath salt and today, I’m going to make the same recipe only with Raspberry Fragrance Oil.

Collect needed items.

Salt, last time I used Dead Sea Salt, but today I’m going to use Epsom Salt.
Raspberry Fragrance Oil
Spray Bottle of Purple Raspberry Color from January 19th
Small Transfer Pipette
Gallon size zipper style bags
Small Gusseted Bags
Ribbon

I’m going to make 2 pounds of Bath Salt, so I need to use the Fragrance Calculator to determine the amount of Raspberry Fragrance Oil that I will need. A strong fragrance load is 1% or 8.7 mL for 2 pounds. I’m going to round this down to 8.5 mL because this will be easier for me to measure as well as allow me to keep my sanity.

Place salt into the plastic zip bag and add fragrance oil to the salt. Close the bag and knead the salt to mix the fragrance oil into the salt and break down any clumps. Once the clumps are gone, we can start spritzing the color onto the salts. I used 40 total spritzes on the salt.

Now the salt is completely mixed, you can measure it into the gusseted bags and then tie the bags with ribbon. You can punch a hole through the Artist Trading Card and tie that card to the ribbon on the bag. Ta-da! The bath salts are now done and you have beautiful invitations.

You can also use this idea for kids passing out birthday invitations, Valentine’s cards or other event invitations at school.

One variation of an Artist Trading Card is to get your friends together and the card has the recipe on the front, and the contact information on the back. The local home brewers are now trading Brewer’s Trading Cards. Do a Spa Product Recipe Trading Card! Do a soap recipe trading card. Especially when the products are sampled, the Artist Trading Card becomes more valuable.

I have attached a PDF of the ATC designed for this post here.

Next week I’m going to show embedding objects in Melt & Pour Soap!

Front and back of the ATC designed for this post.

Adding Raspberry Fragrance Oil.

Kneading the fragrance oil into the salt.

Kneading in 10 spritzes of color.

Finished color using 40 spritzes of color. Tied bag with ATC attached.

1/2 cup in a small gusseted bag.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

How would you design a cute label for an invitation lip balm? Our Graphics Department can work with you to design an adorable label. If you have an idea of how you want the label to look, you can draw out the label basics. (You don’t have to be a great artist to draw this out.)

When I made the Mint-Lemonade Sugar Scrub on April 15, I wanted to have a cute label that was wedding related. I wrote on a paper what was needed for the label. You can click on this image to see a larger image.

The adorable label below is what they sent back to me.

If you don’t have a good idea of what you want, the Graphics Department can still help you. Simply e-mail labels@thesage.com, and someone in our graphics department can help you come up with a great label design that will suit your needs.

I think I got a little side tracked with labels, so back to using lip balm as an invitation. You don’t have to use lip balm. You can use anything that you can think of as an invitation. Tomorrow, I’ll show how you can use Artist Trading Cards and close a bag of bath salts! (For those that don’t know what Artist Trading Cards are, I’ll explain what those are too!)

This is what I sent to the Graphics Department.

This is the finished label.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

You could have a Lucky Leprechaun Spa party using the products on this blog and color them green. When it’s time for everyone to put their feet into the individual foot tubs, let each person choose a Magic Color Bath Fizzy from something like a leprechaun hat or a black plastic cauldron. Make all of the Magic Fizzies turn green but one that will turn gold. The person with the gold Fizzy water wins something from the Lucky Leprechaun’s treasure pot filled with your handmade products. You could have a fun and informative party with many different games and product demonstrations.
The Mint Lip Balm and label could be part of the invitations.
Thanks again for the blog,
mb

After I read her comment, it got me to thinking about different potential ideas for Spa Parties, such as Bridal Showers, Baby Showers, Product Sales, etc. I e-mailed her asking if she would like to guest write a blog about her spa parties idea. Here was her response.

Hi Andee,
What a nice compliment that you liked my idea. Thank you. I was inspired by your Saint Patrick’s Day Mint Lip Balm blog. When I read that the color green brought your fun childhood memories to mind along with the anticipation of Spring and you wanted to share a fun green product with us for Saint Patrick’s Day my imagination switched on. To me it was just like reading a recipe: Green + Fun + Body Care Products + Saint Patrick’s Day = a fun party for you. I also thought this could be a colorful activity for you and all of the MMS bloggers way up there in the North with all of those snow days. I can only imagine what that must be like.

sincerely,
mb

These great ideas can be turned to any event, any holiday or for no reason at all. What about a Friends Party? Just invite your friends for light refreshments and a lotion making party. I loved her response and because she has been today’s guest editor, I will be sending her a $25 gift certificate to be used here at MMS. Congratulations!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite