Muncie Indiana – The Social Tumbleweed

*DISCLOSURE: I RECEIVED THIS PRODUCT COMPLIMENTARY FOR REVIEW PURPOSES. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE MY OWN.

So we’ve heard all the hype about these Aussie towels, they’re fun, they’re beautifully designed (they have tons of cute ones, btw) and they boast about being rapid dry, compact, ultra-absorbent and sand free. Sure that’s great and all but what makes it a perfect choice to give to your mom this Mother’s Day? I mean let’s face it, not everyone enjoys the beach and frankly with this current lockdown situation I’m not sure if any of us are going to enjoy the beach anytime soon. Plus, who would want to give their mom a beach towel for Mother’s Day, right? That’s what I thought until I was gifted one and came to realize that all the “hype” IS true.

So I got the Tesalate Into the Wild XL and yes that particular size of towel at 160cm x 160cm / 63 x 63 inches is good for two (or one with multiple kids, haha) all of their claims hold true but what I’ve come to enjoy about this specific towel is its versatility. Yes, I am in love with their designs, it was hard to pick just one design and every mom would just adore this towel during a trip to the beach because you’re not packing all the sand from your kids’ sand castle or beach toys and you won’t have to lug around a beach towel soaked in water but its hard to believe that I enjoyed this towel so much at home while on quarantine.

Here are 4 ways I’ve used my Tesalate towel at home (so far):

1. Sunbathing Towel

The most obvious way to use a beach towel is to use it as it should be but not at the beach so sunbathing in the backyard it is (for now anyway). Staying indoors for quarantine has gotten my skin so pale so when it got a bit warm I decided to soak up the sun.

2. Personal Blanket

It still gets a little bit chilly here in Indiana so I’ve used it to keep me warm and cozy while I binged watched my series or caught up with some of my books during my downtime from the kids.

3. Picnic Blanket

The size I got was just a perfect fit for all of us, we did a spur of the moment picnic with mostly unhealthy snacks and enjoyed spring in our backyard. Cheeseballs FTW!

4. Teepee Rug

We were playing pretend for the afternoon and the kids and I decided that this would make a perfect area rug for their teepee. They pulled out the feather headdresses I made them and voila!

And this is why I’m convinced that this towel would be a perfect “wild card” present for Mother’s day—you can just use it as a “cool” towel but if you want to it can be so much more than that. I mean what mom would not want an “all-around” towel, something you can enjoy at the beach and also at home or something you can enjoy with your kids, with your spouse or just by yourself. I’m still trying to discover new ways to use my Tesalate beach towel, I have a feeling it would go well with crafts but for now if you’re still unsure about them, click on this link and go check them out.

Enjoy!

~Rhea

This was another last minute party but surprisingly it didn’t stress me out as much as I thought it would. The reason why it became “last-minute” was because Cassie wanted to take part in the party planning this year, she’s FOUR now and of course she wants to have a say in EVERYTHING. So originally she wanted a Unicorn Party and then considered an LOL Party and then a Frozen Party and then we went to the Minnetrista Fairies, Sprites and Light event and that did it for her, we were doing a Fairy Party. Oh and I decided to put my foot down that’s how we finally agreed with the theme, but she was a bit concerned that some of her boy guests wouldn’t come because it was “too girly” so we called it an Enchanted FOUR-est party instead of a fairy party which gave us more wiggle room to include some woodland creatures.

The Set Up

I moved Cassie’s teepee outside and layered some cheap rugs from Five Below to cushion the area. I also draped a floral leaf garland that I found on clearance at Joann Fabrics to match the floral centerpieces on the table which by the way we found at our local Goodwill for $2.99 per arrangement. How lucky were we when we found 4 pieces of those a day or two before her party.

Those tables were stacked up wooden pallets that I found on FB marketplace and we got it for $3/ piece, there were 8 pieces in this set up. We were so lucky too coz he was the only one selling a ton of similar sized wooden pallets within our area.

I totally forgot about covering the pallets until I finished arranging them (didn’t want the kids to accidentally get splinters), then I realized I didn’t have any table cloth or just any cloth long enough to cover the whole thing. So I rummaged through ,my linen closet and found some quilts we weren’t using at that time, its crazy how you find the most random things at home just when you need them. The pillows were obviously from the living room and I just threw them in there to complete the look, I would’ve added more if I had more lying around, haha.

The fairy wings from the Dollar Tree made the perfect backdrop and it was so accessible for the kids to grab whichever color they liked (also to take home)

The pop up white canopy tent we purchased from Amazon. Click here for the link.

Made some floral head dresses for the girls and found some Animal Headbands from Dollar Tree for the boys. It’s been ages since I’ve made headdresses so I tweaked them a bit and used floral wire which wasn’t the best move since it made them flimsy but at the same time I didn’t want them to be too stiff and too hard around the girls’ head so I went with it. Here’s my original DIY tutorial from 6 years ago.

Imagine this set up without the greenery, that was what it looked like 30 minutes before the party. I totally forgot about the backdrop and thought it would look fine with just the balloon but it looked so bare. I went to the backyard and started scouring the area for overgrown plants that would go well with the theme, I literally cut the overgrown branches and just taped them on the wall and voila! I couldn’t believe the final touch to Cassie’s dessert table was just sitting in our backyard, and it was FREE too.

The real live flowers on the cake complemented the greenery backdrop I made

Marco loves the red velvet cupcakes the best, I think next time we should try ordering a red velvet cake.

This has got to be one of our favorites from Chef Maggie of Simply Patisserie. A lot of people loved the cake, some loved the cupcakes best and of course the kids thought the cookies were the best. They all agreed though that these goodies were pinterest worthy, the best part is the taste lives up to its looks.

DIY Loot Bags:

Brown Paper Sandwich bags, scissors, artificial flowers, woodland creatures printable, Roll of Jute twine, hole puncher, paper doilies and Thank You tag printable

Best part is you can find all of these at your local dollar store unless of course they’re out of stock (except for the printable)

I had two sets of loot bags ready for the guests, I had some floral ones (in the back) and some woodland creatures up in the front to distinguish which ones were for the girls and which ones were for the boys.

The ‘Thank You’ cards I found online from Blooming Homestead and printed last minute, of course it took time to cut them, punch holes and tie them onto the loot bags but I finished just around the same time the first guest walked in, talk about a buzzer beater.

I set up an arts and crafts section on the side where they could paint their own fairy houses or design their own fairy wands

We were so worried about the weather but God kept his promise and made it a perfect day—not too hot, not too windy, not too sunny, not too cloudy…just right!

I wish I took more pictures of the kids in the bouncy house because the kids literally had so much fun with it. A special shout out to Boogie Bounce, LLC , for coming all the way from Indy if I’m not mistaken and for giving us a very reasonable rate, their service was 100% excellent. I was honestly surprised they didn’t charge me all those crazy add ons the bouncy house companies here in Muncie were charging me— like delivery fee (what for? we’re in the same city?), set-up fee ( I guess they expected us to blow that dang thing) and after office hours fee ( yeah, someone was charging us more if rental went beyond 4 pm on a weekend). They (and I mean a dad and his daughter) came in early to set up the bouncy house, gave us the rules (pretty basic like no sharp objects in there, no wearing of shoes while bouncing inside), as soon as everything was up they left and they were nice enough to leave the bouncy house until morning the next day without additional charge.

Time to blow her candle!

She was sooo happy her classmates and her playdate buddies could come.

My last minute DIY fairy house piñata made out of recycled boxes, left over crepe paper roll, left over ribbons, left over artificial flowers and a whole lot of glue.

Our little guests sporting my hand made headdress.

Never complete without our silly faces family photo.

…And the Birthday Girl is out.

Little brother followed suit

Thanks to everyone who made Cassie’s special day extra special, thank you for coming to the party, for spending time with her and for celebrating out little girl. I also want to give thanks to our family and friends who couldn’t make it, thank you for your birthday greetings and your prayers, you made one little fairy girl extremely happy.

Happy Birthday Cass! Daddy, Mommy and Xavi love you so much, hope you had a blast!

Thanks for reading up guys!

~Rhea