DIY Pedicure Night!!

Need a little pampering but don't feel like spending a quarter of your grocery bill on your feet? 

Have a DIY pedicure party! 

It's finally summer and most of us wouldn't mind sporting the sandals and flip flops

BUT 

I took a look at my feet and almost collapsed they were so hideous! 

Okay, not really... but they were VERY dry, cracked, nails were chipping, cuticles were overgrown, and my paint job that I 'touched up' the last five times just didn't have that professional look that I crave. :) 

My girlfriends and I have had a lot of our own at-home spa sessions in the past, so I have a good amount of supplies in stock. All I needed was a quick trip to our local dollar store and a little creativity to make this one even more like you're visiting a SPA!  

** Mel's Pedicure Spa **

So even though I've had a lot of pedicure nights in my past, this one was special because of the little added touches...

This is exciting because if you decide to do something like this on your own, you can create so many of your own personal touches just by finding things you already have around your home. For me, I like arts and crafts and always save things like tissue paper, ribbon, and gift bags. 

First I thought, how many people will be coming, and do I have the necessary supplies? I of course do not want people to use each other's pedicure tools, YUCK... so I made a quick run to the dollar store and picked up some cute, colorful, and inexpensive tools. I picked up foot files (I call it the 'cheese grater tool'), nail clippers that happened to be decorated in the shapes of little feet :), colorful toe separators, nail files, and a bag of Epsom salt in lavender scent. 

I wish I would have taken more pictures of how the little gifts turned out, but you'll get the general idea.

I put each set of tools into 4 plain white gift bags. Then I placed a small amount of Epsom salt in 4 small decorative bags cinched with ribbon and put them along with each set of tools in the bags. On the back of each bag I pinned a package of wild flowers with mini clothespins. I placed tissue paper inside and wrote a simple dictionary definition of 'spa-like' words on each bag in black marker. For example, I used the words Pamper, Relax, Rejuvenate, and Escape. Just something that simple can make a statement!

Next I rolled my most colorful towels up and placed them in a fun basket. ( I know at the spa you'd use white towels, but I thought it would be more fun to spice it up a bit! Plus I don't have more than one or two white towels haha)

Don't forget to CHILL a bottle of wine or your favorite and most relaxing beverage! 

I also organized my foot scrubs, lotions, heal creams, cuticle oil, etc... in a decorative basket and placed my nail polish colors and nail polish remover in another container. 

Above, you can see I also found a couple of different sized canning jars which I think add a nice touch instead of just having bags of cotton balls and cotton rounds lying out. You could also choose to add some ribbon to the rims of the canning jars for a little extra :) 

From previous spa nights with the girls, I do happen to have multiple tubs lying around for foot soaking. We actually bought them from the household cleaning sections of WalMart or Target since they are usually used inside your sink for washing dishes, but they served our purpose very well! 

Before we started pampering our feet however, we did eat a healthy dinner first! Since it was a blistering 87 degrees and humid I chose not to use my oven to bake chicken breasts. Here's my own made up recipe below;

Mel's Catalina Chicken

3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts; thawed

1cup Kraft Light Catalina salad dressing

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

dash of salt

dash of pepper

1cup baby carrots

1/2 cup chopped red onion

Place all ingredients in crockpot, turn on low for 4 to 5 hours. Mix every 30 minutes to an hour. 

I served the chicken with carrots, salad & choice of dressing, grapes, and strawberries. After our tummies were satisfied, we filled our tubs with warm-hot water (based on preference), added our lavender bath salt, and SOAKED our feet! 

Oh and I almost forgot! I threw together a "sangria-like" drink based on what I had available and a delicious drink that Michelle made for us at a previous Glee night ;-) Thanks Michelle!! 

I took a 2 quart pitcher, filled a quarter of the pitcher with wine, a quarter with sprite, and the rest with a white grape juice. I also squeezed in fresh orange juice and threw in some thinly sliced oranges. After chilling for an hour it was perfect! For not having any recipes this day, I think it turned out well :)  

During our pedicures, we first soaked our feet and relaxed with some trashy TV ;-) then used a foot scrub. After rinsing off the foot scrub we used our grater tool on our heels and rough dry spots. There's also a fine end that's like a nail file to smooth the skin afterward. After grating, we used heel creams and super moisturizing lotions to massage into our feet. We cleaned up and clipped our nails, took off existing polish, and painted! It's so much fun to get together with some of your favorite girls to laugh, chat, eat, and pamper yourselves! 

Try this at home for an instant stress reliever!! 

As always, thanks for stopping by! Happy Summer :)