On The Night You Were Born Party {Part 2}

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

Prehistoric 4th Birthday

So I'm almost a month late in posting this seeing as my son's birthday party was held at the end of August and now here it is, the end of Sept. Oh well. Better late than never.

Maxim. The middle son. He is my heartbreaker, troublemaker and the attention taker.

And this year, he is obsessed with dinosaurs!

His party, honestly was one of the best parties to plan. It was pretty simple. And a lot of the things used for decorations I already had. BONUS! We held it at a local park shelter and it was perfect! The actual park equipment had a rock climbing wall and was all browns, tans, and neutrals. Yes, I am a nerd and actually DO care about what color the park is when planning a party. 

I knew that I didn't want to do a "cartoony" dinosaur party. And Maxim didn't want that anyways so all was good. The only thing he was persistent on was that there would be a t-rex on the cake AND that there would be a BLUE and ORANGE color scheme. (He's a Bears fan) I could work with that.

Goody bags for the kiddos. Easy. Brown lunch bag. Fold over top. Sew zig zag stitch. Finish with label . . .
"ROAR" means Thank You in Dinosaur.

Cake and handmade cake stand {tutorial here}

The cake table! The GIANT t-rex head was hand made by myself. Funny story actually. Well, at least I think its funny. We have had this giant piece of plywood in our backyard since Maxim's birthday LAST year. I originally had it because I was going to make a big Yoshi cutout for his Yoshi Party, but surprise surprise, ended up running out of time and didn't do it. So here it sat. This big piece of wood.

My husband was going to throw it out, but I stopped him. Why waste it?
I decided to use my trusty old Jigsaw and cut out a big t-rex skeleton head. And I just LOVE how it turned out!

The floral arrangements were SO simple too. We had purchase an area rug for our bedroom and you know those big cardboard tubes that they come rolled around . . . yeah, I saved that too. I cut two smaller cylinders from it, wrapped them in burlap and some orange quilt binding I had leftover from making bunting flags and done! Add some giant banana leaves and some jungle looking plants from Hobby Lobby and you got yourself a pretty fine prehistoric floral arrangement.

 

The food table! We did a taco buffet. And let me just tell you, it was seriously the easiest and least costly party food we've ever done! Inside the food warmer was a pan of turkey chili enchiladas {recipe here} and shredded taco beef. We then had hard shells and soft shells for people to choose. Lettuce, cheese, cilantro, onions, salsa and sour cream. And a burlap bag of tortilla chips!

I wanted to stick with the natural look so I picked up some recycled paper plates that were neutral. As sad as it is, I didn't get them because they were "green" I got them because they went with my color scheme. But I'm very happy that they were green too! Some blue and white striped napkins, orange forks and we were good to go!

The bunting flags, I'm basically an expert at making them now. Cut some fabric triangles using pinking sheers and sew them to quilt batting. LOVE!

Ok, it's true. I even dress to match the color scheme. Yes, I know I'm a party nerd.

So as you can see it was a really great party. Kara of Bloom Photography did an amazing job at capturing the true essence of what the party was. I cannot be more happy! 

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.