Grown-up Disney Princess Party
March 5th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
For my last birthday I thought I’d combine my three favorite things: Disney, theme parties, and great friends.
I started with the Disney Scene Setter; two plastic rolls that turned my apartment into an illustrated Disney wonderland. The rolls combined came up to be eight feet wide and covered twenty-three feet of wall. The five-ft castle and princesses were add-ons that I simply taped to the background you can find an entire party package here. Its not just for kids- all of my friends loved it!
Here’s my Snow White theme bathroom. I cut the mirror frame out of a large sheet of gold poster board and used a sharpie and acrylic paint to make it look just like the one in Snow White. Using an exacto-knife and a cutting board made cutting out the center a breeze.
“Mirror Mirror on the Wall” was written with a glass market bought at Michael’s
Glittery “poison” apples were placed on the sink to complete the scene. Click here for full instructions to make your own.
A pink-themed dessert bar was set up featuring chocolate covered strawberries and other sweets. The cake stands I made from candle holders and glass plates I picked up at a thrift store. See how-to instructions here.
I made “Princess____” drink tags- guests put their real name and princess names on the tags before tying to the glass stem with the ribbon.
Activities included coloring (I found Disney Princess printable coloring pages here)Princess crown making (I used the Princess Tiana Tiara cutout for my pattern) as well as a Disney Princess Trivia game- the prize was a Snow White DVD.
Other party elements:
- I served champagne with strawberries and Snow White’s Apple Potion (Absolut Pear, Absolut Peach, Cranberry juice, Apple juice, and lemon-lime soda)
- White tissue paper poufs hung from the ceiling to look like puffy clouds (click here for the how-to)
- Pop-up tiara invitations were sent to the guests (click here for the how-to)
All of the guests came dressed as their favorite Disney Princess would have if she lived in 2010 (this was my Snow White costume)
One of my girl friends Holly was so sweet and made cupcakes just for the party. I wish I had thought to take pictures before they were gobbled up! She put in the cutest Princess cupcake toppers she found at Williams-Sonoma. The party was so great- an excuse for a bunch of almost grown-ups to have the dream princess party.
Tissue Paper Poufs
March 4th, 2010 § 1 Comment
It’s the new, cheap Japanese lantern! And much more eco-friendly as you can recycle these when you’re finished or simply disassemble them for gift wrapping or packing. I would love to re-use this idea using newspaper, maybe for a black and white party, a New York party or a 20′s era party.
I hung about a dozen of these from the ceiling at my Disney Princess Party to create the feeling of puffy clouds. You will need eight sheets of tissue paper in the color of your choice and string or floral wire. Idea inspired by Martha Stewart’s Tissue Paper Pom-Poms.
- stack all eight sheets on top of one another
- fold lengthwise back and forth accordion-style until you have one small long stack
- tie around the middle with the string or wire
- turn the stack on its side and begin pulling the sheets apart and to the center until you have one giant sphere of paper
- tie around the middle and hang from the ceiling
Princess Party Invitation
March 3rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Invitations to my Disney Princess Party. I started with a tiffany-blue blank card. Using white card stock and pinking shears, I cut out a white square, gluing half to the backside of the card and folding the other half over to make a flap. I then glued a fabric rosette to the front tip of the flap.
Inside the card, I first measured the inside of the card and then used Photoshop to create the insert with the invitation details to glue to the inside. I loved the Old English font to give the invitation a medieval look.
To make the pop-up crown: first cut out your crown and fold the bottom backwards. cut out a small strip of paper and fold the top forward and the bottom back to make a “z”. With the invitation opened to your desired angle, glue one end to the middle of the back of the crown, the other end to the invitation, and the folded bottom of the crown to the bottom of the invitation.
For the insert: I used an Apple Craft Punch to cut out apple shapes from red iridescent craft paper and used a glue pen and red glitter to outline the apples. I then glued to the cards after printing them on card stock.
Lesson learned: when dealing with pop-up cards and other cards involving heavy paper, bring them to the post office for mailing instead of trying to guess how many stamps you’ll need. You will have less invites mailed back to you asking for more stamps!
I spent hours surfing the web for the right inspiration. This was one of my favorites from a UK site- Thyme Graphics
Glittery Apple Decorations
March 1st, 2010 § 2 Comments
Believe it or not these are real apples glammed up for my Disney Princess Party to go along with my Snow White-themed bathroom. All you need is red tempera paint, a paint brush and Martha Steward glitter in Garnet. Simply apply a few coats of paint to the apple- drying for one to two hours in between coats. On the final coat, cover the apple with the glitter immediately after coating while the paint is still wet. After it dries, shake off excess glitter in the sink and decorate at will!
One of my guests at the party is planning a Twilight-themed bachelorette party and was so excited about the apples for her party. Definitely will have to make new ones!
Cheap and simple Halloween glam decorations
October 13th, 2009 § 1 Comment
My mom loves it when I decorate her house for Halloween. This year I pulled out the giant box of cutesy decorations I put up every year (ceramic jack-o-lanterns, intricate black iron candle holders bearing orange pillar candles) and we decided it was time for something a little more exciting.
I took the picture with my phone so bear with me. So what do we have here?
- White glitter skull (skull- $1 at the dollar store, spray painted with white paint and then again with spray glitter)
- Silver pumpkins (tiny pumpkins from the grocery store- $0.69, spray painted with silver paint)
- black glitter rose (black rose from Michael’s- $1.99, sprayed with glitter)
- silver tray and black netting- both from the dollar store
- spider webbed wine goblets (glasses- $1 each, I drew a web print with elmer’s glue and dusted with silver glitter)
I created the “Poison” bottle by first holding a wine bottle over a pot of boiling water to steam off the label, then printed this label I found from an awesome gallery of free spooky potion labels on Flickr
Happy Decorating!
“Join Me For Some Boo’s!” Cute Halloween Invitation with Instructions
October 4th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
I got this inspiration from my new cousin’s wedding invitations- instead of the traditional folded invite, stack two papers and bind together with a strip of decorative paper (“belly band” in marketing talk.) Stay tuned and I’ll post a download to the “boo!”s and the inside with the vintage papery background.
I even lined the envelope for extra- fanciness
Here are all of the pieces laid out.
What you need (everything but the “boo!”s and inside parts) are from Michael’s:
- sparkly black paper
- matte black paper
- textured orange paper
- Spook Alley paper book
- elmer’s glue
- black envelopes
- foam mounting tape
- silver glitter
- scissors
Instructions
- trace the square side of one of the envelopes onto scrap paper to make a template for the invite, leave 1/4 inch because the invite will be bulky
- cut out the orange and the matte black paper to the template, and chop off the bottom inch for the accent paper
- cut the sparkly black paper to 2″xwidth of the invite, glue to the back of the black matte paper
- cut purple paper (from the Spook Alley book) to 2″xwidth of the invite, glue to the back of the orange paper
- on the black paper, draw a spider web with the elmer’s glue and sprinkle with silver glitter
- with one sheet of ghost paper, cut out ghosts of varying sizes and tape with foam mounting tape to the black paper
- print out boo’s and the inside of the invite (download coming soon!), cut out and glue
- tape a ghost to the orange piece
- cut out a strip of ghost paper to 1″ wide, and cut length so it can wrap around the 2 pieces stacked and easily slide off. glue ends together
- with another piece of purple paper, trace the envelope with the flap open, and trim small strips away until it easily slides inside with the glue on the top showing.
- glue the purple piece into the envelope
- finito! happy haunting.
Coming soon- Aloha! Vintage Hawaiian Dinner Party Theme
August 25th, 2009 § 1 Comment
My friend/coworker recently enlisted my help planning his first dinner party (sadly enough I don’t get to cook- can’t win them all!) Since he’s planning to make Indonesian food and he’s a classy dude I thought what fun a vintage hula-y theme would be! Above is the invitation I created that the theme is centered around. Below are ideas for the table setting-
cabana striped tablecloth, vintage silver pieces carrying bright flowers and mason jars filled with tea lights, best of all- each guest gets a little dashboard hula girl as their name card! I’ll be back to post pics of how the invites turn out (paper of course) and pics from the party.
A New Twist to Taste This Summer- Throw an Ice Cream Tasting Party
July 20th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Yet another inspiration stemmed from a local Seattle event: Seattle chef/restauranteur Tom Douglas’ Ice Cream Social event made me think- wine tasting, beer tasting, ice cream tasting? It makes perfect sense! Baskin Robins had the right idea with 31 flavors- who wouldn’t want to try them all? This is a fun idea for a summer get-together with friends- even better for a baby-shower when you need a fun non-alcoholic activity. Ask each guest to either bring their favorite flavor of ice cream (mine is Ben and Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk) or make their own! Other ideas for the party:
- Go with an old-fashioned 1900′s theme and decorate the tables with candy striped table cloths.
- For centerpieces, set out vintage ice cream dishes and fill with ice-cream flavored chupa-chups, salt water taffy, other candy.
- Each guest gets their own shot glass or cordial glass like they would at a wine tasting. Try to find smaller spoons too. I like these cordial glasses from Target because guests can set their glasses down and find them later.
- I created an evite/web jpeg for you to use as well- click here to download.
Nautical Theme Party- I’m on a Boat!
July 16th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Just this past weekend I co-hosted a nautical-themed party on my building’s deck/party room. We used a ton of paper for the decor and only spent about $40 TOTAL on decorations (alcohol was an entirely different story.) It was a huge hit! Everyone was told to dress nautical which could include beachy, pirate, mermaid, sailor, captain, etc. Here are some of the highlights.
Decorations:
- Fishing nets hung from the rafters filled with paper fish (we cut out of white paper and drew X’s for their eyes and tongues hanging out of their mouth)
- The walls were covered with paper decorations of portholes (download here) and bubbles (download here)
- There were nautical signs (see above) of a Sailor pointing guests where to go (download), a “Poop Deck” sign for the bathroom (download) and an old scroll telling guests directions to the party room.
- Nautical movies silently played on the television, such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Little Mermaid.” Other movies you can play include the old “Treasure Island” and episodes of “Gilligan’s Island.”
- Plastic life rings bought from a party shop hung from the deck railings.
- Snacks for guests included goldfish crackers and Swedish fish. Other ideas include saltwater taffy, lifesavers, crab cake bites, clam chowder shooters.
Other nautical party ideas:
- Make nautical paper hats for guests who show up without a costume and scatter throughout the room or put in a treasure chest. Here are a couple links to how to make a colonial pirate hat and a sailor hat.
- Hang nautical rope and/or orange life vests from deck railings or around the room.
- Make seaweed by twisting dark and light green crepe paper and taping vertically from the floor up, randomly alternating colors.
- Set out small goldfish bowls and fill with water and turquoise rocks, sand and seashells, or floating candles
- If you have a pond, a pool or feel like setting up a kiddie pool, float toy boats carrying tea lights in the water
- I stumbled upon this blog that is entirely dedicated to decorating your house with a nautical/ocean theme- tons of inspiration. Click here to see it.
Boat Party Evite/Invitation
June 15th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
In honor of my recent delight at the SNL short I’m on a Boat I have decided to create an evite image/paper invite design for your next boat outing or nautical theme party. You can download the image here. Stay tuned for pictures , a playlist and theme ideas for an “I’m on a Boat” nautical theme party! This involves all of the guests dressing like their favorite sea-faring character- sailor, fisherman, pirate, mermaid, etc.
