All She Wants To Do Is Dance (And Bounce)

My dear crazy fun friend Jodi (jojo, jodster) was trying to decide what to do for her daughter's 2nd birthday this month. She wanted to make it fun especially since her hubby is deployed again. Jodi loves the 80's and ever since Ava was a baby if she played the safety dance she immediately calmed down. She's a true child of an 80's lover! I suggested an 80's dance party theme. Jodi lives 4 hours away so I packed my car to the roof with tables, decorations, food etc and headed south. She rented a bounce house for the kids to play in while the adults enjoyed some 80's tunes and food. Not having kids of my own I didn't realize how fast kids can clean out a buffet of food and snacks that are eye level and not being supervised! WOW! My husband has nothing on the boys under 7!

The wreath was a vine wreath covered in some chic 80's zebra print I found in a fabric stash and topped with floral fans with inserts from some tapes I bought at goodwill attached to them to let everyone know they were here to party!

   Love all the big hair on the men and women..Almost can't tell the difference between them :)

 Big BRIGHT poms surrounded the light with  paper decorations in between spelling A-V-A . This topped the gift and to go goodie bag table.

  What 80's party isn't complete without candy to take home..My favorites are all here..Pixie Sticks, Fun Dip, Pop Rocks, Ring Pops, Smarties, Nerds, Air Heads etc!

We tried to keep the party outside since the weather was nice and dropped food is easier to clean up outside!  We made a sign to put behind the beverage station that hosted homemade lemonade and some stronger beverages for the bigger "girls" 

 I searched the internet for old magazine covers from popular 80's music/movie star mags! I downsized them and hot glued them onto disposable wine glasses (6 for $1!) This was a great way to claim your glass for the night.. I had to grab the NKOTB! :)

  Records in direct sunlight...not a smart move but lesson learned. the decorations and platters started to wilt and had to be hardened in the shade before the guests got there! I should have known making bowls from records just a little heat goes a long ways!

 The wind wasn't cooperating with us this day and kept blowing decorations, plates, cups everywhere! :)

I decorated plastic bins from the dollar tree with parts of casette tape inserts and filled them with bubble wand microphones jazzed up with zebra ribbon and cut outs of the original mtv and vh1 logos...makes me want to break into singing Video Killed the Radio Star! I will spare you though! Threw in some snazzy 80's crochet gloves and chocolate covered pretzels!

  After one failed attempt to make this tape vase I figured out the best way to attach them together is with a high temp glue gun and overlap the edges. I lined it with a cardstock paper to give it some extra support. Then I placed a cup with flowers inside. viola..a motley crue tape vase

 I had practice making these record bowls as Christmas gifts this year..great as serving bowls for chips, hold candy etc. I didn't explain to my friends this gift was a bowl and they thought it was a cute taco shaper and stuck it in the oven with a tortilla in it..This makes me smile thinking about it.  Heat the oven to 190 and place the record over the top of a glass bowl or dish. Take it out when the record melts around the edges of the bowl and shape the record while it's  inside a cooled bowl/dish.

The cassette tape cases from the tapes used in the vase came in handy to make food labels. I printed out tape pictures and labeled them using 80's songs.  Records glued to multicolored vases made great food servers for mini hot dogs and pretzel knots

 Kid Friendly Foods like corn (muffin) dogs, pineapple cream cheese on hawaiian bread and fruit skewers

    The crock pot came in handy for some warm snacks on a windy day bacon wrapped little smokies                                      and buffalo chicken dip

                             The cake was made by publix to match the plates and napkins from Target!

         Turn a muffin tin upside down and put sugar cookie dough on them to make cups. Didn't come out quite like the picture but they were delicious and the kids snagged them sans fruit ;) oh well..it's a party!

Birthday girl enjoying some cake (she snagged an extra piece when no one was looking! love this girl!)

Jodi and Me dressed in our 80's finest! grr baby!

Hawaiian Honeymoon Travel Wedding Shower

What kind of wedding/bridal shower is perfect for a couple that have every household item they could need?
                         
           
                                       A Honeymoon Wedding Shower! 

We started researching couples shower themes and finally decided to help make their honeymoon as awesome as possible by raising money for it! Since weddings can put a cash crunch on the honeymoon...how about help the couple breath easier and RELAX after their big day!  Since they were going to Hawaii we came up with a vintage Hawaiian travel shower to take some of the cheese out of the luau party connotation.





I made up a plane ticket invitation and perforated it using a sewing pattern marking wheel..

The bride wanted everyone to dress hawaiian style so we made sure to include that on the side (and we had some awesome outfits show up!)

The description on the invite explained for people to take a baggage tag of their choice that was included in the envelope and place it in their card with their gift "funds"

The guys that got this invitation were really confused by everything that fell out of the envelope! OOPs! I know, us women like to complicate everything! 

The reason I made up 3 "baggage tags" for the invitations was to give people an opportunity to delegate their money to some certain activity the couple would be doing on the trip and a way for the couple to write thank you notes and thank the guest for something specific that they will do on their honeymoon.

I cut out the tags from card stock paper and found images on the internet to cohesively combine: Hawaii, vintage travel and honeymoon.. 

I lucked up and found a stamp at Hobby Lobby to put on the envelopes to make it look like a postcard

  The 3 of us hostesses have collected enough vintage or Hawaiian things over the years we didn't really have to buy too much in the way of decorations.. just use some imagination and lots of cutting and folding of a poor atlas from the thrift store
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  Heather cut out the arrows for the directional sign and we all painted and labeled them with different towns representing where the couple met, lived separately, will live together, got engaged, went on vacation this year and their honeymoon destination.  This now resides in their garden/patio area  after we dropped it off after the shower ;)

I painted these little favor boxes/suitcases using a sponge brush, mod podged travel stickers on them and glued on leather strips as handles and travel tags thanking guests from m&e. Inside were chocolate covered macadamia nuts and coffee beans that H and I had a lot of fun making 

These little favor box/suitcases were placed at the entrance/exit for guest

 The Gift/Card Suitcase

Map Garland (from left over map pieces), Old Pallet Board, Mail Box, and Hand Made Antiqued Postcards (Thanks K for making the pretty cards!) made up an area where guests could leave their sentiments for the couple to read later. The flowers were a "PEN" bouquet (Thanks H)

Tins from the dollar store served as the silverware holders. I painted little pieces of wood with chalkboard paint and attached the origami map flowers. Less than $1.25 in each one!

                             I used waterproof ink to stamp the suitcases onto the napkins!

                                            YUM!!!

                                            Map Heart and Flower Garland on the Food Table

The food place cards had the Hawaiian name of the food on the top..English on the bottom. K put together a beautiful menu of :

                                                   The Roasted pork was used to make pork tacos

                                      Couture Cakes Made this beautiful suitcase cake. The topper I bought online. Thank goodness a patient told me about the only place in town that had the birds of paradise flowers out of season..

             I had a few old grass mats in the garage K thought of wrapping the bar front with and I cut out the letter...and we had a tiki bar!

                                          H's homemade Blueberry Wine Sangria!

              Dollar store vases wrapped in rope with antiqued Hawaiian pictures glued to them.

  This trunk was purchased on my girls only b-day camping trip during the world's longest yard sale in TN this past summer. We were glad it could be a part of the shower!

                                                  paper airplanes

                                            H hung paper airplanes from the ceiling of the venue (On the Roxx)

Hostesses with the Bride. Kristin, Elizabeth, Me, Heather dressed Hawaiian style

                                             The Wonderful Couple

xoxo