Are you ready to plan a fun event that will have all your girlfriends excited for weeks in advance? Plan a spa day party!
You could do this for a small group of friends, your Girl Scout troop, mommy play group, homeschool group, Mother’s Day church event, etc. If you have a group in mind, I’m sure you can plan something memorable and great, whether it is for five or 75!
Last week my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group held our 3rd annual spa morning. If you aren’t familiar with MOPS, let me break it down for you: moms + free child care + hot breakfast = fabulous mommy play date.
So anyway, we themed an entire two-hour gathering around pampering and relaxation. Ahhhh, bliss! We plan this every year because as you may guess – this is pretty popular with the ladies.
This year we did five stations and a sixth floating massage station for our moms. We split into groups of 6-8 women and rotated through each activity in twenty-minute intervals.
We planned for about thirty-five, but this could easily be scaled up or down. For a smaller group, leave some spots empty until the ladies are ready for them, or do fewer stations. For a bigger group, just make sure you have more types of stations and let them choose what they want or double the stations so there are two of each type of station set up (i.e. two manicures, two hair styling, etc.).
Wait! Isn’t this going to be crazy expensive unless I do it all myself? I’m not up for giving thirty-five backrubs!
Look to your community. Our group is part of a nonprofit that caters to moms with young children. There are many great businesses and direct marketing companies who are willing to come in and perform services for free just to have the opportunity to interact with potential customers.
Many of the businesses who have come in and served our moms have really benefited by sharing their products.
Just make sure you set clear expectations before the event. The number one priority is pampering women.
Good products and services will sell themselves with very little effort. The providers are definitely allowed to share and provide ordering information, but anyone trying to do a hard sell would not be invited back.
Most of the people we’ve invited to help at our spa events are people we know from our circles, and we haven’t had any issues.
Another great resource is within your own group. Do you have someone who has a Mary Kay business? Great, have her come in and do facials!
Do you have a beautician? Have her dress hair or do eyebrow threading. You get the picture. Providers get free publicity and you get pampering. It’s a win/win for you and your providers!
Heard of a potluck? Make it a Spa-tluck!
Who says you have to do it all yourself? Throw a fabulous spa party by having each guest contribute to the event. One gal can bring manicure supplies, another a homemade facial, and another a tasty treat.
Or make it a theme of favorites and have each person bring their favorite facial recipe, nail polish color, or foot scrub. How about a $5 day? The hostess does the organizing and the guests chip in a small amount for the expenses. Be creative!
Spa Party Ideas
1. Hands: Set up a manicure station, or if you’re looking for a spin on the typical manicure, how about a trendy “Jami-cure” station?
Jamberry is a direct sales company that sells vinyl nail wraps in tons of fun colors and patterns. The vinyl wrap is heated and applied it to the nail for a manicure that lasts up to two weeks.
We had a Jamberry consultant from our group helping women apply a sample wrap to one nail on each hand. Then the ladies painted the rest of their nails with a coordinating nail polish for a one of a kind glitzy manicure!
Tip: Transfer from the nail station to a less active station so they don’t mess up their nails. We had ladies use a quick-dry top coat on the polish before moving on to a discussion station.
Other ideas: We have also done paraffin wax hand dips in the past. You can purchase a home paraffin wax dip kit for a small investment. It’s kind of fun to sit around with mitts over your freshly dipped hands while you chat!
2. Feet: We invited an Arbonne consultant from our group to do a foot spa for our ladies. She brought tubs with hot water and an invigorating bath salt for the women to soak their feet in.
The soak was followed up by an Arbonne scrub and lastly a lotion. Our gal was fabulous!
We had several moms with babies in their laps, so she sat on the floor and washed their feet for them. It was pretty moving to watch!
Other ideas: You could also set up a foot soak station yourself with some tubs from the dollar store and homemade bath salts. Follow up with a pedicure if you have time!
3. Aromatherapy: We plan a take-home essential oil craft every year, and our moms love it! We purchase the supplies and one of our Young Living ladies does a mini teaching session about oils in the home. Past projects have included bath salts, lip balm, and a sugar scrub. This year we did a lotion candle.
The candle craft was such a fun idea! We melted the different “wax” ingredients into a crock pot, filled a candle tin, and added essential oils.
When the candle is lit, a small wax pool forms. You blow out the candle and dip in fingers, then apply to skin for a moisturizing lotion or a hot oil massage. It was a big hit and makes a great couples gift!
Other ideas: Any DIY twist would work here. Set up a craft bar and let the ladies choose an essential oil of their choice to add to their project. Bonus: Let them make bath salts to try out at a foot soak station!
Massage candle tutorial here: Soap Queen TV – Massage Candles (Youtube)
A great DIY spa recipe roundup: Dating Divas – 25 Relaxing DIY Spa Night Ideas
A fun list of essential oil crafts: Homemade Mommy – DIY Beauty Recipes and EO’s
4. Touch: Two very generous massage therapists from our local chiropractic office came to do five-minute chair massages. We had our ladies sign up for a numbered slot as they arrived and write their number on the back of a raffle ticket so they would remember.
We don’t always get through everyone, but it’s a great incentive for moms to arrive on time! You could also draw names for massages if you had a big group. We put up a new number every five minutes and each lady left her station to get her massage.
The massage therapists have definitely gained repeat clients for their time, but we also purchased two half-hour massage certificates for a raffle and gave each therapist a small gift card to thank them.
Other ideas: Watch a video on how to give a great shoulder massage and practice on each other!
5. Taste: For breakfast we whipped up a large batch of fruit smoothies. We used a pretty simple recipe that we multiply for however many ladies we expect:
We also set up a conversation station with chocolate fondue and strawberries for a decadent treat.
We planned this station right after our nail station so our ladies could chat and eat strawberries while their nails dried.
You can find the chocolate recipe here (it was AMAZING): AllRecipes – Chocolate Fondue
Other ideas: Why not do a smoothie bar or fondue station with more fresh ingredients? Have everyone bring their favorite fruits for blending or dipping.
6. Soul: It doesn’t have to be just about pampering the body! A station set up for stimulating discussion can be very refreshing for the soul.
We had an older mom with grown children at a table set with the chocolate fondue and strawberries. She led a short devotional about the importance of taking care of ourselves as women during this season of motherhood.
We had some discussion questions related to our devotional and each woman was given an opportunity to share something.
Focus on the Family has some great thoughts here: Taking Care of Yourself
Starter Discussion Questions:
• Do you feel like you’re a better mom/person when you take time for yourself?
• How do you take time to recharge; what refills your soul?
• How can you do a better job of making yourself a priority?
The idea behind a discussion station is to get women thinking about their life. By listening to others and taking a few minutes to really think about what makes them “tick” they will come away feeling refreshed and invigorated with ideas to apply at home.
7. Sight: Set the stage! Make your party atmosphere relaxing and beautiful to look at.
Light candles, start a fire in the fireplace (if you have one), use simple decorations, reduce clutter, use natural light and bright clean colors.
Add some soft background music. You don’t need to do anything extravagant to make an appealing setting for your spa event. Think simple and clean!
Bonus – Creativity: As moms we don’t often get to exercise our creative side so we organized a small craft activity. We decorated a small mason jar and wrote date ideas on popsicle sticks to create a uniquely customized date night idea jar.
The sticks were dyed different colors to signify different types of dates (Free, $$, $$$, At-home, Needs a Sitter, etc.) and we put a legend on the jar so couples could choose their ideal date. If you need a filler, come up with your own fun craft!
You can find the idea here: Shambray – Date Night Jar
Other Great Ideas:
• Have a hair stylist come in and do trims, or a simple up do
• Eyebrow threading
• Mary Kay, Younique, or Motives makeup lessons
• Facials
• Henna tattoes
• If you have a cosmetology school near you, see if they are willing to bring several students to your group to practice manicures, pedicures, hair styles, trims, eyebrow threading, etc.
• If you have moms with very young babies invite older moms or teenagers to come in and hold little ones while mom is being pampered
Be creative and have fun!
Does this sound like something you would enjoy? Tell me about your ideas below!
Liz @ DarlingLizzy.com: Love encouraging moms, natural living, faith, &chocolate