Cruise Ship themed dessert table

This year's theme for the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon at my sons' school was a Cruise Ship.

I was stumped! Seriously. How in the world do you decorate like a cruise ship? And after

looking all over the web for inspiration, I still had no clue.

So then I started to think . . . "What is on a cruise ship?"

•Nautical flags

•Bright blue water

•Wine/Champagne

•Well dressed crew

•Towel animals

So that gave me something to go off of at least.

I went to my local Joann Fabrics store and picked up yellow, blue, red, white and black felt. 

Felt is very inexpensive and easy to work with as it doesn't fray. Following the nautical alphabet flags that I found online, I made about half the alphabet flags using nothing but scissors and hot glue. I used a white rope to hang them on!

Then at about midnight I was online watching video tutorials on how to make towel animals like they leave in your rooms. I have to say, my elephant turned out pretty darn good! I also wipped up some food label cards with two little anchors on them!

I really didn't have a plan as to what the layout of the table would be. Mainly because it was super late at night and I didn't feel like "mapping" it out. So I winged it. I just brought a whole bunch of stuff that went with a travel/cruise ship theme.

•Two globes

•Some grassy plants

•Empty Wine Bottles

•The DIY nautical flags

•Towel Elephant

•Skipper Hat ($10 at Party City)

•Fabric with a water pattern on it (Joanns)

•Left over rope from the flags

•Vintage Suitcase

•Burlap for table cover

Vintage 1st Birthday

I started planning McKinley's 1st birthday right after he was born. He was about three weeks old to be exact. I came across this blog, Young House Love. 

They did a photo "quilt" with their daughter. It was amazing! {check it out here}

I NEEDED to do this with McKinley! I was too late to do a weekly one, so I opted for a monthly one.

Here's how it turned out!

Now you're probably wondering how this has anything to do with his 1st birthday. Well, really it has EVERYTHING to do with it. I planned the entire party around the colors of the fabrics used in the photo quilt. In fact, I used the actual fabric to make most of his decorations. It truly was so special!

DIY Number Wreath . . . tutorial coming soon! 

The brothers . . .

DIY Hot Air Balloon Paper Lanterns . . .

Notice the bunting flags hanging from the ceiling . . . made from the 12 fabrics!

Vintage paper straws, coordinating balloons . . . a vintage flair.

McKinley's Cake . . . simple . . . DIY Cake topper

Bunting cake topper

DIY Fabric covered party hats

The Food labels were all handmade by myself and coordinated with the invite (below)

DIY hand sewn paper napkins & yarn wrapped letters

Photo credits to the amazingly talented Kim Klein Photography LLC

Fire Flower Centerpiece | DIY

Supplies

Old Small Rubber Basketball

Scissors

Glossy Red Spray Paint

White Felt

Fuzzy Fluffy Fabric

Hot Glue Gun

2 ft skinny PVC pipe

Two opening bigger PVC pipe

Glossy Green Spray Paint

Rocks

 I found this ball at a thrift store for 25 cents. Using scissors, I cut 1/4 of it out.

 Spray paint it red.

For the white spots cut out white felt circles and hot glue them on randomly.
For the fuzzy white mouth, cut about a 2 inch wide strip the length of the mouth. I used some quilt batting because I had it here and it worked. I did two layers to make it extra fluffy. It all depends on what fluffy fabric you have.

  To make the green pipes, simply spray paint them green. 

To attache to the "flower head" I just cut an X in the bottom center and pushed the smaller pipe through. Because the ball is rubber and thick, I didn't even need to re-enforce it with glue or anything. Just make sure to not make too big of an X. Better to start smaller and have to make it bigger than to start big right away.

Ken Doll Oscar Statue | DIY

Supplies

Plastic "Ken" doll

Gold Spray Paint

Black Spray Paint (arousal can) CAP

Two Small Screws

Screwdriver

This was my favorite part of the Hollywood Themed Decorations. Maybe because it was so funny, but it definitely helped the look of the table and was a great eye catching center!

I have three sons. So as you can guess, I didn't exactly have a "Ken" doll laying around. So I thought I would check out the store to see if they had a cheap one (I was thinking like $5-$7 cheap). Well, they did. However, the ones that they make now, have hair. Like actual hair, not plastic. So that won't work.

So my next option was Goodwill. And lucky for me, this guy was laying in a bin along with a bunch of naked girl Barbies (lucky guy). All mine for a whopping $1.99.

The rest is easy. 

Spray paint him, front and back with your gold spray paint. Make sure to move his arms so that you don't have "hand marks". 

I then drilled two little holes into the cap of the black spray paint. I also drilled the same holes into the bottom Ken's feet. Then just take your tiny screws and secure him in! Wala! That's it!

Cardboard Movie Reels | DIY

Supplies | For ONE reel

two cardboard pizza rounds

empty cardboard ribbon spool

elmers glue

paint

Ok, so I am lucky enough to have a family business that I can go to if I ever find myself needing the cardboard circles used under pizzas. "he he" So I marched myself over and picked up four 12" rounds and four 14" rounds. If you don't have a family business to get these at though, I'm pretty sure that you could walk into any pizza restaurant and ask for them. I'm certain they wouldn't have any problem selling them to you for a couple dollars.

And as far as the other supplies needed, an empty ribbon spool is easy to come by. You can either be like me and save all mine just in case I would ever need them for a project such as this, OR you can go to a craft/fabric store and ask them if they might have any or if they don't, they will probably hold them for you when they do.

So, you could make these any size, but I chose the 12" and 14". 

Take two of them (same size obviously) and your empty ribbon spool. Glue one round to your empty ribbon spool, trying get it as centered as possible. Then, flip it over and glue the other side to the second round. Easy as that. 

Now, you could hand paint them, but I choose the faster and "cleaner" in my opinion way of spray painting them. So spray them all silver, gold, pink, purple . . . whatever color you want, basically.

I didn't bother flipping them over to spray the bottom as mine will be sitting on a table. But if you were planning on hanging them from the ceiling or leaning them upright in some way, I would recommend painting them entirely. 

When the spray paint was dry, I simply found a circle to trace (in my case, it was a disposable plastic cup) and traced circles all the way around it and in the center. You could do 4,6, or 8, depending on how large your circles are. For this one, I did 6 and then a center. Then I just hand painted the circles using a darker shade of my main color. And there ya' have it!

I ended up doing the 12" ones in silver/gray and the 14" ones in a bronzy color.