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DIY $4 Centerpieces

Centerpieces were dollar store carnations sitting on black glitter stars

Last Academy Awards Party post.  Although the Awards show happened last night, I thought these centerpieces are good for a variety of occasions so I decided to post anyways.  I’ve been throwing parties for many years now and until recently, I hadn’t discovered the fab source of Dollar Stores.  Now it is a first stop when doing party décor planning and then I fill in other items from stores and Amazon.

These centerpieces are nothing I’d planned but when I saw the carnations at Dollar Tree, I thought they’d be an easy, cheap and make ahead option.  I’m not a huge faux flower fan but carnations are one type that look pretty darn good.  Each $1 vase was filled with marbles (already had these from Halloween displays) and then I bound 3 stems together with strong string and clipped the stems with a wire cutter.  SO EASY! Next I used the foil hanging stars from Amazon (shown a few posts ago) as a tracing guide on black glitter paper.  I usually opt for seated food service but somehow that felt too stuffy for this party so instead we used tall bar tables and decided to skip bar stools.  The girls just grazed on finger foods so no need to take up more space or spend money on them.

Each table had a $5 rented red tablecloths, layered with a 50 cent matte gold plastic square tablecloth (from Dollar Tree & cut in half so each cloth made 2 toppers), then a $1 black star with a $ 4 centerpiece on top.  And voila!  $10.50 total for an awesome looking table.

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Amazing original drawing of your wedding dress available

Debi Griffen page

3 years after my husband & I eloped to Paris, I finally go my act together and ordered the drawing of the wedding gown I wore for the ceremony we had in Seattle a few months later.

I LOVED the drawing that Debi Griffin of Illustrative Moments did right after we eloped!  And I was super excited when the drawing and a photo of us outside Notre Dame Cathedral were featured in Florida Bride magazine.

These custom drawings are so beautiful in person that the photo here doesn’t begin to do justice.  The artistry is lovely and the detail she goes to make the drawings really reflect the bride are extraordinary – especially given they only cost $195-225. They are an amazing gift to give a special bride too.

Motivation to order the ceremony drawing came from the re-do of my home office (which also doubles as my closet).  I’ll feature some shots of it once it is further along.

I will post the new drawing as soon a I receive it.  Debi said she is really busy these days so it won’t arrive until some time in April.

 

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DIY Academy Award Glasses/Favors

Star how to

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found the gold rimmed glasses at Dollar Tree.  They did double duty and kept drinks sorted for the party and served as a favor at party’s end.
1. draw a modern-style star in the right scale for your glasses on white paper and cut it out
2. slide the paper inside the glasses
3. using an enamel gold sharpie trace the star on to the glass
4. decide on the lettering style for the guest’s names
5. if you aren’t secure in your calligraphy abilities, write them out for practice
6. using an enamel black sharpie write the names on the glass

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Academy Awards Party DIY Decor

close up (3)The tinsel clusters hanging from the light strings were made from two Gold Metallic Foil Curtains  from Amazon.  I’d love to tell you this was a quick and easy task but instead I’ll fess up to the fact that it took 2 of us around 2.5 hours.  I do have to say that the photo doesn’t give the full impact of how great it looked.  It really had a big impact and set a special tone to the party.  The curtains are 3′ x 8′ but the top few inches aren’t usable so we measured the actual fringe length and divided by 4 to calculate each cut level.  Although time consuming, the steps are simple:

  1. lay out curtain flat either on a clean hard surface floor or your dining table (the foil is a bit magnetic so it picks up dirt & pet hair easily so lay a drop cloth if needed)
  2. use masking tape to adhere the top & bottom of the curtain so it doesn’t slide around and then place guide marks on the side of the curtain at each cutting level
  3. with very sharp scissors cut levels of fringe off beginning from the bottom and carefully gather up each row of tinsel then set aside neatly ( I stacked them on a large tray)
  4. continue to cut off each length of tinsel until  you reach the last level at which point trim the header off of it
  5. depending on how meticulous you’d like to be, you can either grab a handful of tinsel strands as you like or do what I did and count each group to contain 12 strands
  6. reserve 8-12 groups of tinsel for use covering the plug ends of your lights
  7. decide on a design to string the light strands up that suits your space – we did a cross design but I’ve seen these hung in a zig zag design too
  8. secure the light string well – for the corners we used heavy fishing line to tie to tacks that were pinned to the top of my molding and for the center section that went through my chandelier we used thin zip ties
  9. drape one fringe group over the light cord centered between two bulbs.  Use thin width scotch tape to adhere the fringe to the cord or pre-gather clumps of fringe and attach with fishing line
  10. make tassels from the reserved groups of tinsel and attach them in each corner to cover the plugs
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Academy Awards Party

Invitation design from Etsy's Maddie and Marry was printed by Shutterfly.

Since the Academy Awards are coming up soon – Sunday February 22 – I wanted to share the recent party we had for my 7th grader’s class. Just photos today, tomorrow I will review simple DIY instructions.

Sourcing: Amazon for statues, tickets, cupcake stars, misc. decorations, popcorn boxes and gold tinsel. Invitation design by Etsy’s Maddie and Marry. Target foil streamers and gold patterned lanterns (not shown). Dessert plates Tiffany & Co. Jars and light strings Fred Meyer.  Gold rim glasses Dollar Tree.

 

 

The Italian Soda bar was a favorite with the guests and easy to set up.

Red velvet cupcakes, 3 flavors of popcorn, Redvines and other movie candy filled the dessert bar.

Serving items included an antique brass store riser, Murano compotes, Rock Cut dessert plates added to the table.

A sample of the costume contest prize awaits the category winners of Best Look-Alike, Most Creative, Funniest and Best Overall. The ballots and DIY ballot box sat adjacent to the sample prize.

Lots of impact yet easy to create. We used 2 dozen helium filled and 1 dozen air filled balloons for variation.

Two strings of lights with gold tinsel created a fun vibe to the living room.

Foil stars were personalized with guest names and hung with fishing line over inexpensive sheers.

Jov.E at party (2)

Mixology instructions for the guests.