A Party to remember........
"Solid Gold"
Party
A look into a DIY party to remember.....
As you all know, I love home decor with such passion that it's embarrassing. I'm joking of course, I don't really get embarrassed. In fact, I could talk about DIY almost 24/7, but most of you may not know that if you amplify my feelings for home decorating and diy 10 times; you will see how much I love party planning!!!
I love all kinds of party planning! But my favorite and the kind that I am most experienced with is birthday party planning for kids.
I have been a stay at home mom off and on for the last 18 years now and so with that also came budget, budget, budget. Therefore, a lot of times it was better in my budget to create my own party. About 3 1/2 years ago, I also lived in a small town in Missouri where there just wasn't a great deal of places to have a party and on top of that, both of my kids birthday's were in the winter.
I learned to get creative with the parties that I had for them. Now days, there seems to be a great deal of options for cute parties, themes and decor. But when my kids were little, it was very commercial type plates and napkins and that was it. Maybe, throw in some balloons and some crepe paper right? Yeeesh......I mean Dora the Explorer plates just didn't do it for me.
(Not that there is anything wrong with that) lol
It's funny really, it always seems that you are trying to out-do yourself each year too. I have a hard time keeping it simple. I don't know where my obsession with big parties comes from. It might be that I didn't have birthday parties growing up so I'm compensating! (Pretty freudian, huh?) Anyway, I try to start out with a simple theme and then I just keep adding to it! It's not usually so much money but time that starts to add up because I've got pretty good at creating things instead of buying them, which saves me money in the end.
This "solid gold" party I wanted to share with you was for my daughter's 14th birthday. Solid gold wasn't really the theme but gold ended up being a major part of it, hence the name for the blog post.
I thought of the name in brain storming for a title of Solid Gold and then had to giggle from remembering the 70's show that the name came from; the Solid Gold Dancers! I'm really giving away my age for sure now!
Gold and Silver are really poplular in the decorating world right now and so very easy to find.
What I ended up doing this year was to have a "Night Out" theme followed by a sleepover. But instead of having a sleepover at my house, we booked a hotel room where 6 girls where invited to dress up and go out to eat, then return to the hotel to swim, hang out in their PJ's and eat junk food! Sounds good so far, right? I did spend a little more on this one than I had in the past but I'm here to tell you that just being able to show up and not clean up, was super nice and totally worth it! YAY!
When my husband and I looked at the room of the hotel it was this goldish-yellow and red accents! Hmmmm.....not really what I would have gone with there but I had to figure out how to work with it. I knew I would be setting up a dessert/snack table in the room for the girls and the perfect spot was under the big goldish/yellowish curtains that were trimmed in red.
After we booked the hotel, I went it search of decor for the dessert table. I already had a small 5 ft table and black table cloth. My first stop was Target where I practically got everything, and I found the sweetest gold and white themed napkins, plates, banner, decorative paper lantern, and paper straws in the party isle. The solid gold party theme was born!
I already had black cupcake liners and gold sprinkles, as I planned to make my own cupcakes; so that part was done! Next, I had to think about snacks! I really didn't want a bunch of sugar so I decided on popcorn, chex mix, chocolate dipped pretzels with gold sprinkles and pirouette cookie sticks.
Cute, Cute, Cute!
I happened into the scrapbooking isle where they had chalk board labels and chalkboard treat sacks that you could write on with chalk! What?!!!
I was ready to rock and roll and I had just left the building (Target), when I realized that my mom in law had given me this gold picture frame a few months ago that I hadn't really repurposed yet! Well, Voila! I could make a chalkboard with the frame for the dessert table that would coordinate the gold, white, silver and chalkboard all in one beautiful them! Yep! I love when a plan comes together! Here is what it all looked like finished!
Here are some close-ups for you to see the detail!
These cute chalkboard treat sacks are my favorite! I used the same design I had purchased from the chalkboard cupcake toppers and copied the design onto the treat sack with a oil based white sharpie that when applied looks just like chalk; but permanent!
I made some chex mix and packaged them in these clear cello treat sacks. I already had these as well so didn't have to purchase them. The chalk board labels I had made previously with a paper cut punch and chalkboard contact paper. You can also find any number of chalkboard labels at Target or Hobby Lobby. I also drew the design for the tags with my white sharpie marker.
These cute paper cannisters were found at Target as well for $2.99 each. I filled them with cookie sticks and dipped the pretzel rods in white almond bark and decorated them with the gold sprinkles that I used for the cupcakes.
Here are the cupcakes that I made. Emily made these gorgeous flower toppers for them. She used modeling chocolate, gold spray and her mini flower cookie cutter! Aren't they darling?
The cupcake toppers I purchased at Target. They had the little white outline on them and served as an inspiration for the rest of the chalkboard decorations that I drew the patterned border on each of the popcorn bags, chex mix bag tags, and the border for the chalkboard "Happy Birthday" frame.
I was so happy how this turned out! It matched the room perfectly and we were able to set it all up early in the afternoon so that when the girls got back from dinner; it was a surprise when they returned!
Emily made these individual custom cupcakes for each of the girls and their interests. She spent part of the day on Saturday making them! That's why she is our "Happy Baker"! I love the tutu cupcakes! Very clever and coordinated with her friends favorite color!
These girls sure had a great time! I might want to have my birthday party in a hotel next year! ;)
We stayed at the Embassy and they left a box of treats and soda's for the girls too! Oh well, so much for worrying about the sugar overload! It was so sweet of the hotel to do that for her!
Let me know what you thought of our classic chic "Solid Gold" party decor! I would love to hear about a party you planned recently so leave a comment below!
I loved the gold decor so much that I have decided to decorate my antique booth with lots of "Silver & Gold" themed holiday decor!!!!
Until next time...........
I hope you have a Golden Day!!!!
