BFF Gift Idea: Summer Fun Must Haves Beach Tote

This shop and my summer fun BFF gift tote has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions, nostalgia and BFF memories are mine alone. #ShareYourSummer #CollectiveBias #ad

My friend Emily and I always seemed to find something fun to get into during the summers.  Bonfires, taking road trips to Old Orchard Beach, watching Grease while eating take out from the local diner.  Even during our college years summers were our time for catching up and having adventures.

Summer stretches out longer here in Kentucky but back in Maine there’s not too much longer before kids go back to school and summer winds down.  Both Emily and her husband work in the school system so their slightly more carefree days are about to end, too.  Before that happens, though, I’m sending her a BFF gift – a beach tote full of summer must-haves to remind her of all our fun times!

BFF Gift Idea: Summer Must Haves!

I filled up my beach tote full of summer must haves with the following items:

Self-Tanning Lotion (because who has time to lay out these days?)
Hair elastics
Nail polishes in fun summer colors
Selfie stick (to help catch all those great summer photo ops)
Lip balm
Magazines (co-pilot gets to read the interesting articles to the driver!)
Antibac
Sunnies
Colgate Optic White Toothbrush + Whitening Pen
Cokes & diet Cokes
BFF REESE’S Cups

When you’re road-tripping you have to have a few 20 oz bottles of Coke to share, and I love that they’ve started putting names (a 1,000 different ones – find your name here) right on the bottles.  Back in HS, for some reason, it seems like everyone went by their first and middle names together: Emily Kate, Liza Marie, etc.  So when I found “Kate” and “Marie” bottles (Walmart has the widest & most organized selection) I thought it would be a fun way to give a little nod to an old tradition.

I also found some old photos of Em, I and some of our friends that I’m going to tuck into my BFF gift tote.  Hanging out at my parents’ house, lining up to participate in a parade, and a group photo my HS besties and I had taken to give as a gift to our parents for graduation.  They’re good for both a smile and a laugh at how much we’ve changed.

When I stumbled across the BFF custom REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups exclusively at Walmart (in both the checkout lines and a pallet on the way out) I knew I had to get them.  Summer isn’t summer without snacks and REESE’S cups are easy to share!

They also had packages that said things like “My Fave” and “2 Funny”.  The peanut butter cups inside are also printed with different phrases, too.

I wish I could deliver my BFF gift tote in person but I’m not sure of the next time I’ll get home.  So I’ll probably have to mail this.  But if you can surprise your BFF in person with some summer fun must haves that would be amazing, too!  Maybe you could hit carve out a few hours to hit the beach or mall or even just the backyard and catch up.

What else would you add to a BFF gift? Need more inspiration? Get it here.