Creative Party Blog

When you are hosting a birthday party in your home for your kids, it’s always important to provide a festive atmosphere. That doesn’t mean that you have to have the entire house decorated to the hilt. It simply means that there should be a spot carved out that you turn into “party central.”

At this almost sleepover, the hostess made the kitchen the focus of the party. They ate there as well as worked on their craft. As you can see here the area is very inviting to the kids and it really didn’t take a whole lot to create it.

Simply put down a festive table cloth. Add some balloons or big impactful centerpiece and a sign saying “Happy Birthday” and you are set.

Atmosphere……….atmosphere……atmosphere……..even kids are very visual!

Decorating Tables for any kind of party can be very impactful to the image of the party. And it’s a great way to release the creative juices. I like there to be at least 1 pop item and here I used a home made Web table overlay for the decorations.

We had 3 tables for the kids to eat and then a serving/staging table and it also had an overlay. Underneath I had some burlap that I had bought for a ladies luncheon that I recycled and used with the webs which made a perfect combination. You can purchase yardage of burlap for very little money and simply cut it and leave the edges loose or hem them. I……just left them loose.

To make the webs, I had my husband to make a box out of scrap 2X4 wood we had in the garage. Nails were placed in the corners and center of each run. Slightly bend the nails out so that the yard or string doesn’t slip off while you are trying to work on it. Then your box is ready to go!

I used a knotty soft yarn for the web I made here, but you could use any kind of string or yarn. If you don’t plan to do a burlap underlay, you could even make the spiderweb out of twine and put it over a black paper table cloth. That would be super cute.

Start by cutting lengths to fit across each side and diagonally and tie a simple knot around each nail. To make the circular web part, start in the middle and make a knot encompassing as many of the stretched strands as possible. I left the yarn in a ball and just starting making my way around the web tying a knot at each intersection. It all depends on the size of your web but mine took about 3/4 of a ball to make each web. Just cut the end wherever you want and pull off the wooden form. Carefully fold it up and I just store mine in a plastic bag.

Resources: Black Yarn can be found at any hobby or knitting shop. If you don’t have scrap 2X4’s at home, you can get them at a lumber yard, some hardware stores and even Home Depot. You might even be able to talk them into cutting and nailing it together for you. I use to do that when I was single!

Have fun making your Halloween party table overlay. This could even be done in red or pink and used on a Valentines Table for kids or adults. Something you can dress up or dress down!

Table Scene Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

Welcome to my living room. Well, my living room make shift Halloween Birthday Party. Yes, those are Christmas Decorations you see in the back. Yes, the furniture is replaced by kid size tables. And yes, we had 26 kids. I know. Everyone has told me how crazy I am, but it was super fun.

Because it was holiday time, I needed to mask the decorations we already had up for that occasion. I’ve used balloons in the past but have never just let them fly around and bounce where they may. It was perfect. The balloons drew your eye up making the first thing the kids saw very festive and colorful. Halloween Party Decorations don’t have to be complicated, although you will find other ideas from this party that are. Often the ideas that make the most impact are simple like this!

We rented a helium tank from a local party store and blew up 100 balloons. With two people, it really doesn’t take that long and if you aren’t tying strings onto the balloons, it is even faster. Be sure not to be too monochromatic with the colors. Here we used black and orange and then pulled in the green for a splash that worked.

Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

When decorating for a birthday party there are so many directions you can take that it can be overwhelming. Then when you throw in the fact that it’s the holidays and you are having a themed party or you are going to a gym and it can really be hard to tackle.

This party was just that. We had my daughter’s Creative Art Birthday party at a community gym which is huge and impersonal. You walk in to an area where the ceiling is lower and this was going to be my space for create the atmosphere with our balloon decorations. Then once we finished with the initial craft, they kids were let loose in the gym.

To create that atmosphere, I made a wall of balloons. You could do this with balloons or even streamers or signs or plants…..lots of things. We decided on balloons because I had lots of help to prepare for the party. We blew up about 100 balloons and then tied them on to varying lengths of string with a weight at the bottom of each. Let me tell you, this took some serious time but was so cute.

The other caution I might give you if you decide to take on this decorating project is to “let it go.” You will go to all this work on the balloons and then if you have small or big kids coming, someone will start picking up the balloons and will take off with them and mess the whole wall up.

Just now thinking. The way to go around this would be to just blow the balloons up without helium and suspend them from the ceiling to make the wall. They the kids would bat at the balloon decorations but wouldn’t be able to pick them up and take them along for the ride!

Enjoy your party decorating!

Decorating the table for a Princess Tea Party can be super fun. And the table can be quite elegant without being breakable!

First off this mom rented tables and chairs that were just the right height for the kids. Everything is more fun for them when the don’t have to struggle to eat or see things. Simple lilies were placed in the center of each table and they smelled sooooo good. Plates and “silverware” were purchased to look like china plates and were pre-placed around the table. Add some lovely napkins and your platters of food and possibly the cake or dessert and your table is all decorated with very little effort!

Resources: The cake was purchased at Bakery Bar in Portland, OR. China looking plates were purchased at Costco. Beautiful napkins can be purchased at many higher end groceries and gift/card shops.

Photo taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

There is nothing more uplifting that flowers. So, there could not be a better party theme to use for a birthday party than a Flower Party Theme! When you decorate for a flower party, it doesn’t always have to be real flowers. Craft some of your own colorful flowers to fill your home or party place.

These balloons are so easy to blow and and make into flowers. You can have them all over the place. And I’m just now thinking of this, but you could mount these on the top of a stick and do two green balloons to fasten to the side of the stick to make stand up flowers. Oooh. Even put them in a flower pot with sand in the bottom of even dirt.

To make them, choose 2 different colors: 4 balloons of one color and 1 balloon of a complimentary color. Tie 2 balloons together and then tie the other 3 together. At this point don’t try and tie them all together but twist them together and position the way you want. Sooooo easy.

Enjoy making decorations for your flower party. This one should make you smile.

Photos taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

Oh my goodness. My daughter’s birthday is just a few days before Christmas and so we are always battling something when planning and implementing her party. This particular year was no exception.

We had planned for this joint party to be held in a gym. There would be a stage as the big decoration focus for this dance party. Well, the gym was in a local community center. Mid December is started icing and snowing here in Portland and it snowed and it snowed and snowed. As a result everything was closed including our party venue!!!

What to do? Neither my friend or I wanted all these kids in our houses right before Christmas. Luckily my friend owns a restaurant in Nob Hill which is not far from our homes and because of all the snow and ice, her parties had cancelled and their party room was OPEN! Whoo Hoo.

We made the decision to change the venue at the last minute and phoned everyone of the change. Now what to do with a much smaller space and not much room to move around. Well, we had to set the stage with the decorations. And what better way to do that than with balloons!

After simply having star balloons at each eating table, we made these towers of balloons. A local party store had made candy canes out of balloons in their warehouse since it was Christmas time. So, to make it festive yet not too holiday, I just changed the colors. To make the tower you tie 2 balloons together the same color and 2 of an opposite color. Then you twist the 4 together to make a row. After you have made several of these sets, you simply wrap them around a vertical PVC pipe and place in a candy cane pattern.

To secure the balloon decoration, I put the PVC pipe in a small bucket filled with concrete. As the party went along they became part of the entertainment for the kids. We just pulled off the balloons and they batted them all around the room! Balloons are a hit at any party but especially can be festive decoration at a dance birthday party.

When you have your birthday parties at home it can be more work sometimes as you have to clean up your house as well. But it can also afford you more flexibility with your party. As well as it offers more character.

Having banners around in bright colors is a great idea especially for a superhero party. Your home probably doesn’t have bright blue, yellow and red decor and that seems to be the theme colors of many superhero costumes.

The first banner the superhero guests saw was a welcome banner which guided them down to where the party started. This allowed the host and hostess to be down with their guests and not standing at the door directing traffic!

Where cake and sandwiches were service, the dining hall was called the “Hall of Justice.” There is nothing little superheroes like to inflict more than a little justice. When looking for impactful ideas for your superhero birthday party, having large colorful signs is an easy way to achieve that.

Resources: Colorful butcher paper and paints can be found at many teacher supply store, party supply stores or craft stores. Often they are in large rolls that allows you to roll off and buy only the amount you want. So, it would be important to know about the length of your sign before you go.

Photo taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

For this piggie birthday party, I didn’t plan very far in advance.  Instead of having a special centerpiece or table display, I decided to display the favors in one big pile in the middle of the table.  Keep in mind that this party was for my 1 year old son so it was all minimal.  Any big party you plan for a 1 year old is for yourself and not the children.  And that’s O.K.  if it’s your thing but we just weren’t in to that for this party.

The boxes are custom boxes with cupcakes inside.  On top is the birthday boy’s pig birthday hat.  Instead of making each child a birthday hat, I chose to make them all piggie noses to wear.  Those are organized and displayed on the boxes for a fun extra dimension to the stack.

Table decorations at birthday parties are all about color and carrying on the theme.  When it’s in a home the decorations don’t need to be as large as if you were in a building with high ceilings.

This pig birthday party theme was really fun.  Ages of the kids who attended ranged from 6 months to 4 years and all enjoyed the creative theme.

A Train Birthday Party can be so colorful and fun without having to be Thomas the Train. Here a is a beautiful table with a train spread across the table and each train has it’s own special decorations. I’ll be doing a post specifically on the cake so look for it.

This table has a few flowers to tie in the colors, a plastic throw away table cloth, Colorful bowls with a few candies and confetti scattered around.  It was so picturesque.

This train birthday party was at the child’s home and we all walked down to the local park for some child entertainment.

The venue where we had this party had high ceilings. Something needed to happen to make the party tables not only go with the theme of fire trucks but to draw the guests in to the food and cake. Here we used the balloons again to do that. The balloons are the colors that coordinate and the provide a false ceiling for the tables.

Each fire truck table was preset with a fire plug juice cup and a dalmation hat at each space. The table cloth is disposable and isn’t really fire truck theme but is totally works with the colors.

Photo by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR

Our main focus balloon was a truck balloon made of the silvery material that we blew up and put a weight on but obviously not a heavy enough one. As soon as my son let it go, it flew up to the top of the party room never to be seen by guests! We were also going to use the fire truck balloon as the focal point on the serving table. Something you can do!!!

Photography by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR