While watching the kiddies in the backyard baby pool this summer, you can simply add a few props to help your staycation feel like a tropical paradise!
Grab your wide-brimmed hat and oversized sunglasses.
Pull up a lounge chair, and prop up your feet.
Spray a little flower-scented air freshener around.
Put “Tropical Songs” on your Pandora.
Create a fruity drink filled with pineapple juice and crushed ice.
For extra ambiance, decorate with paper palm trees!
You can definitely get the kids involved in the palm tree making before they jump in the pool! They won’t even realize that it is part of your mental escape to the islands. I love watching kids’ surprise when the palm trees start to “grow”!
Materials:
three full sheets of newspaper per palm tree
tape (masking tape works well)
scissors
What To Do:
Spread one sheet of newspaper on a flat surface, like the kitchen floor.
2. Start to roll the newspaper sheet from one of the sides into a tube.
3. Just before you get to the end of rolling the tube, place the start of the second sheet just inside the end of the first sheet. (about a 2” overlap is good)
4. Continue rolling with the second sheet. Insert the third sheet at the end of the second sheet the same way.
5. Continue rolling.
6. When you complete the roll, tape one strip of masking tape all the way around the tube in two places—about half-way and an inch or so up from one end.
7. At the end that is not taped, cut down the tube through all the sheets down to the top of the tape that goes across the middle of the tube.
8. Continue making three more slits all the way down the tube to the tape for a total of four cuts. The cut strips of the newspaper tube will start to cascade down.
9. After the whole section has been cut, find one of the center strips. Very gently, start to pull it up. The palm tree will start to “grow.” Pull until the tree is about the height of the original tube, possibly longer if it is sturdy. And you've made a palm tree!
I like to think of it as a new type of recycling—you are turning a newspaper back into a tree!
Now, grab your pineapple drink, pop on the tropical tunes, put up your feet, and enjoy your personal tropical paradise!
