Palentine's Day Spa Party

Today's guest blogger is Hannah Dahlman, Youth Services Librarian at Clintonville Public Library. Welcome Hannah!

Valentine’s Day can be a polarizing holiday for some, but I felt it was an opportunity for fun that shouldn’t be missed! I decided to take the focus away from the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day and instead we celebrated ‘Palentine’s Day’, which takes place on February 13th and its purpose is to celebrate friendship.

I host a weekly game night, Lego club, and monthly Pokémon club – all well attended programs, but I have received feedback from a handful of my regular after school kids that those activities are for ‘boys’ and they really wanted something different to do. I pitched the idea of doing a spa day and they were all about it! I knew this party would draw in more girls than boys, but I made sure to include in advertising that everyone was welcome – because everyone is welcome to all of my other programs (within age limits).

I planned this party for 1.5 hours, and it easily could have gone longer, and it was open to kids ages 8-18. I had some games picked out in case they finished the activities and wanted something else to do, but I didn’t end up needing them at all. I had a total of 16 kids and 2 adults attend (which is awesome for our small library) – including 4 boys. We had food and drinks, a nail painting station, a facemask with cucumber slices station, and a temporary tattoo station. Everything I purchased came from Amazon, but the food and drink items came from our local grocery store. 

Cost breakdown:

• Food and drinks: $35

• 12 face masks: $10

• Cucumber: $1

• 20 piece nail file/buffers: $8

• 6 oz nail polish remover: $2

• Cotton balls: $9

• Temporary tattoos, 2 sheets of 82 realistic looking tattoos: $16

• Already had on hand: plates/cups/napkins, nail polish, air freshener 

Total cost: $81

I set out all the activities and food/drinks right away, and let everyone choose what they wanted to do. Most kids went for the food right away, but easily the biggest hit was the temporary tattoos! I purposefully purchased a large amount of really colorful, realistic tattoos, anticipating I would have left overs to giveaway as prizes for later programs. I let them choose whatever tattoos they wanted, with no limits, and I cannot over state how EXCITED everyone was to pick whatever they wanted! I had kids who spent the entire party just doing tattoos – it was a HUGE hit! All the kids had Valentine’s Day parties at their schools the next day, and they were so thrilled to do their nails and put on tattoos before their parties.

The nail station was also a blast. I had a ton of buffers and nail files out, and we had nail polish left over from a previous craft, but I also brought in some of my own that I no longer use. Some of the kids asked me to do their nails, which I was comfortable with, and some just did their own. Surprisingly this station did not get very messy at all…the messiest part overall was the food. It took me about a half hour to clean everything up and I did have some kids stay and help me with clean up. 

We had so much silly fun at this program, but truly, it was about friendship. I had several kids that came by themselves because they were so excited about the spa party, who ended up meeting new people and developing new friendships. One of my after school regulars (who tends to keep to herself, more engrossed in her phone than chatting with others) told me at the end of the program how happy she was that she came because she got out of her comfort zone and chatted with new people - I also spotted her doing someone else’s nails. It was a real bonding experience for everyone, and definitely will be a program I repeat for years to come.