For a colorful addition to your pool party and a great, easily personalized take home party favor, purchase beach balls for your guests from a local dollar shop! Even if you are having a mock pool party in your own back yard, you can play dodge ball, soccer, kick ball, or beach volley ball with your beach balls. Everyone loves a pool party, and outdoor parties really do minimize the risk of a seriously messy house. If you take a few precautions, add some accessories like kiddie pools filled with sand and some with water, set up slip and slides and sprinklers for cool, wet fun, and decorate, you are sure to have an outdoor party to please the most discriminating partier!

Be sure to provide plenty of watering holes to keep guests hydrated and a shaded spot (you can use a canopy, which may be rented) to get relief from the sun, add a little sunscreen to the mix, and you are good to go!

Designate trash receptacles, special places like your watering holes (great ideas are iced water and punch in igloo spouted coolers with paper cone cups attached and trash bins next to them to facilitate drinking on the go while minimizing half used cans and bottles) by filling beach balls with helium and writing with permanent markers things like "Trash" "Watering Hole" or "Sunscreen Station" on them, to direct guests.

Have pails and sand in some of the plastic pools, and organize sand castle contests. Create slip and slides by aiming sprinklers onto staked out sheets of heavy plastic, and serve simple foods like hot dogs and chips. You can even hang more helium filled beach balls near the food with "Filling Station" printed on them!